


Ignite your bones

by Builder



Series: Whoa Bessie [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol (briefly), Alternate Universe, Amputee Bucky Barnes, Anxiety, Bullying, Bullying Violence, College, Death of a Parent, Depression, Domesticity, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Food Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Medical Procedures, Military, Military Violence, Minor Character Death, Morality, NSFW, Past/Present, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Romance, Sappy Ending, Sex, Sickfic, Slow Burn, Terrorism, Therapy, Trans Character, Trans Steve Rogers, Trauma, Vomiting, also like Gift of the Magi, but also not really, like The Notebook, parallel narratives, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 16:43:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 32,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12988191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/pseuds/Builder
Summary: James and Steve loved each other once.  But they've been separated for 10 years.  James has been to war, and Steve's fought battles of his own.Fate brings them together again, but James doesn't remember Steve.He's not sure he remembers himself._________Also known as The ffing Stucky novella, in which Laur makes it personal.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I’ve written something like this: a novella-length multi-chapter story that’s more than just a collection of one-shots. It’s an AU nobody asked for; it’s a slow-burn; it’s a sickfic; it’s so much more. 
> 
> Thank you to sxldato for being my very amazing beta. I’ve never had a fic beta read before, and I really appreciate it! I would never have been able to get out a fic of this length at this quality without your help. I honestly feel like I owe you my life at this point. If you want to find them on Tumblr, search @sxldati.
> 
> Also a huge thank you to my wonderful artist, G, for the amazing artwork in chapter 21. Find her on Tumblr @gershel-draws.
> 
> This story is about Steve and Bucky, but a lot of the drama tackled in here is my drama. I’m not in a fantastic place mental health-wise right now, and I hoped writing this would be good for me. It’s been a useful organizational tool, and it’s helped put some feelings into words, but I’m still a confused mess. Like with some of my other mental health-centric works, I want this story to help open minds and start conversations, but there’s a lot in here that I’m tender about. 
> 
> In the same vein, this is not a story about a perfect world. This is a story about the real world, or as close as I can get to it in my imagination. Not everything is going to turn out ok. Not everything is going to be politically correct. Bad things happen, people are thoughtless, and others get hurt. None of this is in my story because I don’t like certain types of people or because I have it out for particular characters or anything weird like that. It’s because that’s often how the world really works. Additionally, this is a single (fictional) narrative. Not every experience is similar to or even bears any resemblance to this one.
> 
> This story is a total AU, so just about nothing lines up with the real MCU or Marvel comics. There may be some inaccuracies in here, medical and otherwise. Some of this is written from experience. Some is not. I’ve done research, but I can’t guarantee anything. Also, some of the places/place names mentioned are real, and some are made up. I sincerely apologize if anything bugs you.
> 
> Please read the tags for trigger warnings. I’ve tried to catch everything, but if I didn’t, just know that this is a work full of darkness and illness, and there’s a lot of angst.
> 
> This work has a playlist. It’s posted as a separate work in the same series. (Warning, though, it’s kind of emotional.)
> 
> Final note, I promise. This story contains parallel narratives told in alternating chapters. The name, date (especially year), time, and location will note how each piece fits into the overarching plotline. All times in chapter headings are written using the 24-hour clock (military time). My apologies for times that look like years. All times within the text are written using the 12-hour clock (standard). I know I am ridiculously confusing, but I promise, it works.
> 
> Ok, final final note. Read. Enjoy. Give feedback. I put a lot into this work, and I’d love to know what you all think. If you need to get ahold of me, I’m on Tumblr as @Builder051 and @my-wayward-son.

**1.0 JAMES, Wednesday 07 January 2015, 1746 hours.  Shield Apartments.**

 

 

The first night in his apartment is terrible.  James doesn’t know what to do with himself.  The rented furniture feels awkward in the small space.  It’s too soft and homey to be like anything he sat or slept on at Walter Reed or back in Afghanistan, but it’s too impersonally stiff to remind him of similar pieces in his childhood home.  

 

He supposes he should settle in, empty the clothes and papers and random bits of memorabilia from his suitcase, or maybe hang something on the wall.  But one-handedly maneuvering his shirts onto slick plastic hangers is confusing, and the command hook he attempts to stick up doesn’t find purchase on the still-damp paint. The hook tumbles to the hardwood floor, along with his Army recruitment poster, with a sound a little too reminiscent of an IED explosion.

 

James hits the floor on his stomach and quickly draws his legs up underneath him so he’s perched with the crown of his head pressed against the leg of the sofa and his nose jammed into the ground.  His quivering breath makes a fog on the wood’s varnish, and shadows dance around his visual field, creating the illusion there’s something flickering in the corners of the room.  The overhead fixture is set up with cheap, low-wattage bulbs that don’t do much to take the living room out of the oppressive dusk falling outside.

 

_A lamp_ , James thinks.  He needs a lamp.  And a rug.  He can’t afford any of it, as his disability checks barely cover the subsidized rent, but making a list of future purchases helps drown out the echo of the imaginary explosion still sounding in his ears.  Maybe he’d like a radio.  Or DVD player.  

 

So he can watch stupid action movies with sound effects that are too loud and too triggering?  Where the fuck is he going to get movies to watch, anyway?  James sighs, shakes his head into the wood under his face.  It’s a stupid idea.

 

Night has truly arrived by the time he sits up, throwing his weight back onto his heels.  The open blinds show him a view of the full moon hanging almost level with the streetlamp at the end of the block.  The light is comforting, until James’s gaze unfocuses and the view starts to look like a huge pair of beady, glowing eyes staring back at him and he has to scramble lopsidedly to his feet and twist the rod until the slats of the dusty blinds close.

 

James doesn’t know what time it is because he doesn’t have a clock.  The burner flip phone the VA generously gave him along with the keys to his apartment sits on the edge of the kitchen counter beside a _welcome to your new home_ cupcake on a paper plate.  The phone should tell him what time it is. The cupcake will have to be dinner since there isn’t any other food in the house. But James isn’t keen to interact with either.  

 

He’s had the phone for the same six-odd hours he’s had the apartment, but James has barely touched it.  He isn’t even sure he can open the clamshell design with his singular large, fumbling hand.  Let alone unfold the top of the box, get out the charger, plug it into the wall, and somehow worm the exposed end into the phone itself.  He supposes he’ll have to grip the little device between his knees…

 

Planning and problem solving are good things.  The few short sessions James had with the psychologist before he was discharged from the hospital told him that.  As time passes and he goes to various therapies and his memories start to come back, James should be able to lead a normal life again.  Not that he particularly believes it.  He’s too stuck in the present, where everything feels difficult, or foreign, or both.  

 

He remembers waking up in a field hospital outside Kandahar.  When the attending physicians had told him he’d been rescued from the wreckage of the explosion of what looked like a Taliban prisoner transport vehicle, James had just blankly nodded.  That sounded…plausible.  He knew his name.  That he was American and an Army Sergeant.  Afghanistan made sense.  Therefore so did the Taliban.  But beyond that, James was blank.  He didn’t know his favorite color, his favorite food, his closest living relative.

 

Much of it’s still missing from James’s mind.  He still doesn’t know what he likes to eat; everything tastes bad and sends him retching into the toilet half the time.  He does know his dad died after a stroke while he was deployed, and perhaps that’s why his mom can’t stand to look at him, gaunt and trembly as he is.  His sister thinks he’s out for cash and doesn’t seem to understand that losing his arm does in fact make him very much disabled.  So he’s on his own—really on his own, now that the VA’s deemed him fit enough to live independently.

 

James seriously doubts their decision, now that he’s standing frozen beside the window, not sure if he wants to sit down or lie down or plug in the television or burst into one-armed jumping jacks to burn through some of the nervous energy bubbling inside him.  The mere fact  that he has the choice to do whatever he wants is overwhelming.  He had free will back in the hospital, but everything there was structured around routine.  The first nurse’s visit at 7:00, followed by breakfast at 8:00 and PT at 10:30… His day was scheduled hour-by-hour right up to dinner at 6:00 and the last nurse’s visit at 9:00 at night.  

 

It’s dark outside.  It has to be after 6:00.  He’s missed dinner.  James crosses the apartment’s solitary room into the alcove that serves as the kitchen and tears the plastic wrap off the cupcake.  Half the frosting sticks to the clear cover, leaving the cake looking pitted and halfway bald.  James doesn’t care, though.  The frosting has the dripping, gelatinous look of toothpaste, and that’s one thing he’s firmly decided he doesn’t like.

 

James imprecisely pinches the cupcake wrapper between his thumb and index finger, peeling it down and getting a smear of sticky sugar across the backs of his knuckles.  He licks them out of instinct, mixing the sweet goo with saliva on his tongue and swallowing hard.  His hand is damp and feels weird as he finishes dispensing with the flexible paper wrapper. James lifts the cake to his mouth.  

 

It takes three bites to demolish the dessert, and he barely chews.  The softness sticks to the sides of his throat and takes repeated swallows to force it down.  James is instantly full and bordering on nauseated as the spongy texture expands upon contact with his empty stomach.  Cake crumbs and crystals of frosting cling to his fingertips, and he can taste the sweetness along with the metallic saltiness of his skin as he presses the thumb-side of his fist against his lips to hold down a belch.  

 

Warmth builds in James’s throat.  At first it feels nice.  Comforting.  Until suddenly it doesn’t.  He pounds across the wood floor and skids into the bathroom, falling to his knees with bruising force and hanging his head over the toilet seat.  James heaves hard, trying not to taste the now slightly acidic cake for a second time.  His stomach clears as quickly as it’d filled, but vertigo lingers, playing with gravity around his ears until it feels like his head is going to roll off across the floor.  

 

He reaches out for toilet paper to wipe his mouth, but there’s no roll on the holder.  James sighs.  He lashes out at the edge of the countertop.  The impact leaves his sticky knuckles smarting, and James mentally curses himself for being so stupid.  He would verbally too, but he thinks it’s wisest if his mouth stays closed for the time being.  

 

What kind of idiot moves into a new apartment with no basics?  No paper products, no cleaning supplies, no food.  James tries to make an internalized list like he did earlier with his imaginary household goods, but it’s harder to pick through essentials.  He’s never lived alone.  He barely knows what he needs, and everything seems like a waste of money anyway.   His stomach flips, and James makes a mental note to never eat again.  At least that’ll cut out the expense of food and toilet paper.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve is rescued.

**2.0 STEVE, Wednesday 10 March 2004, 1908 hours.  Brooklyn College.**

 

Steve’s washing his hands when it happens.  His evening class has just let out, and he’s eager to replace the PowerPoint images of folded brain tissue with visions of tacos or spaghetti or whatever the dining hall is serving tonight.

 

When the two tough-looking guys enter the bathroom, Steve ignores them.  He reaches for a paper towel, dries his hands, and is about to walk out the door when something whips across the back of his head with enough force to make him stumble.  

 

“The fuck?” Steve mumbles under his breath.  At first, he thinks it’s possible it was an accident.  Someone rushing too quickly and not paying attention, or maybe some rogue ceiling tile deciding now is the moment to part company with the roof.  But when derisive laughter rings in Steve’s ears and his shoulder jams into the protruding corner of the wall, he knows what he’s in for.  

 

He knows stuff like this is bound to happen, but he hadn’t thought it’d go down like this.  Maybe if he’d been seen leaving the stall, adjusting the overly-centered bulge in his pants, someone could notice  his extra petiteness and gracile features and jump to conclusions.  But a view of the back of his head as he washed his hands?  Steve hadn’t even been checking himself out in the mirror.  

 

His thoughts break like a scattering flock of birds when his head smashes into the heavy wood door hard enough to make him see stars.

 

“What a fag,” one of the dudes snickers, landing a punch to Steve’s gut.  

 

“Ugh,” Steve doubles over and manages to stumble a few steps back toward the sinks, which is stupid.  He should focus on getting out the door.

 

“Aw, does it hurt?” the other deep, disembodied voice croons sarcastically.  

 

It fucking does, but Steve’s not going to make any more noise.  He straightens up as best he can and balls his fists at his sides.  His vision is fuzzy, but the hulking outlines of his attackers are easy targets in the small bathroom.  He launches himself at one of them.

 

He flails his fists and his feet, even butting with his head, trying desperately to get any sharp or hard point of his body digging into the bully’s flesh.  He manages to elbow one in the ribcage, which makes the guy wince, but doesn’t do much else.

 

“You can’t hurt me, faggot,” the attacker hisses.  “Not with your puny little fists.”

 

The other boy picks up.  “You know what does hurt me, though?”  He grabs a fistful of Steve’s hair.  Steve kicks him in the shin, but it does nothing to break his grip.  “Fucking gay assholes thinking they’re men.”

 

If Steve wasn’t in pain and imminent danger, he might’ve laughed.  This is a gay bashing?  It’s affirming, even though it’s still terrible.  And these fucks don’t even know.  

 

Steve flails again, this time clipping the guy’s jaw with his fist.  He drops his hand from Steve’s hair, but easily catches him around the waist.  He gets him in a headlock, exerting an intense amount of pressure on Steve’s airway.  It only takes a moment for him to start gasping.

 

“No knight in shining armor to save you, huh, fairy princess,” the other guy says.  He crudely ruffles Steve’s hair, then draws back his arm and socks him in the stomach again.

 

The bathroom door bounces off the wall with a sound like a gunshot.  Steve’s angled away, so he can’t see who’s just burst in, but he hears the gruff and surprised, “What the fuck?”

 

“Not your business, asshole,” the guy holding Steve barks.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ, what is this?  Middle school?” The interloper asks.  The sound of knuckles hitting flesh follows, then the muffled thunder of a body bouncing off the metal stall door.  

 

There’s more hand-hitting-face above Steve’s head, and the arm around his airway slackens.  Steve slumps to the wall, coughing.  

 

“Why do you care so much?” One of the bullies grunts as the mystery white knight knees him in the stomach.  “He your boyfriend?”

 

“Sure,” the white knight replies.  “Whatever.”  

 

Steve’s ears burn, but he’s too busy trying not to have an asthma attack to pay much more attention.  That is, until a strong arm wraps around his shoulders and yanks him out of the bathroom with a rough, “Come on.”

 

They exit the building and trudge halfway across the grassy quad before the white knight pushes Steve down onto a bench and squats in front of him.  “Ok, you need an inhaler or something?  I’d appreciate if you didn’t die on me here.”

 

Yes, he does need his inhaler.  Steve shakily retrieves it from his pocket and breathes in a puff of plasticky medicated air.  He coughs, then continues to tremble as the wheezes start to subside.  

 

“Alright.  You ok?”  The white knight pats Steve’s knee. His wide brown eyes gaze  into Steve’s watery blue ones, concern etched into his face.  

 

He’s handsome, and somehow familiar, and Steve almost can’t remember the question.  “Yeah,” he breathes.  His voice is weak, but the asthma attack and the pressure of being choked has made it husky.

 

“They just…sneak up on you?”

 

Steve nods.  Then he remembers his manners.  “Thanks,” he says.  

 

“No problem,” the white knight replies.  “That kind of stuff, it’s disgusting.  Two on one?  Seriously?”

 

Steve exhales a singular feeble laugh.  He meets the other boy’s eyes again, and finds them squinting in confusion.

 

“Sorry, this is random, but, I feel like I know you from somewhere.  Like, from a long time ago.”

 

The feeling is mutual; Steve’s just not forward enough to ask.  He doesn’t like where this is going, though.  He can practically feel the pages of his preferably-ignored past rustling in the breeze.  “Hm,” he says .

 

“You…didn’t happen to grow up in Virginia, did you?”

 

“Yeah, I did,” Steve says.

 

“Prince William County?” the white knight presses.  “Woodbridge?  Near DC?”

 

Steve feels his eyes widen.  “Yeah.”  The dark eyes, the sweep of shiny brown hair…it falls into place in Steve’s memory, back when they were seated criss-cross on a brightly colored rug in some long-forgotten teacher’s elementary classroom.  “James…”

 

“Yeah.”  He looks Steve over.  “And you’re…?”

 

“Don’t say it.  I’m not the person you knew,” Steve mumbles.  This is why he’d moved to New York, to start over, avoid the invasive questions while pushing through the process of college.

 

“Your mom’s Sarah, right?” James asks.  “The one who used to volunteer at school?  Diagnosed people with colds just by looking at them?”

 

God, now that’s a long-gone memory.  “Geez that was, what, kindergarten?” Steve laughs, forgetting to be on guard.  His voice creeps back upward as the hoarseness fades.

 

“Yeah, something like that,” James chuckles.  Then he goes back to business.  “You feeling alright?  Want me to walk you back to your dorm?”

 

“No, no, it’s ok,” Steve quickly says.  Nobody can see his room; nobody can see his hall.  He can’t get the blemish of _Stephanie_ off his school records until he can secure a legal name change, and for that he needs money that he doesn’t have…  The spiral of intrusive thoughts brings anxiety, and Steve swallows it as best he can.  “I’m good.”

 

“Then, do you wanna get something to eat?” James asks, a hopeful spark alighting his eyes.

 

Oh, god.  A flutter starts up in Steve’s chest.  Just looking at this guy is making him go insane.  He’s already not particularly composed, and spending more time with him is bound to make it worse.  He should say no.  He needs to study.  Call his mom.  Something.  “Um.”

 

“It’s, uh,” James says.  “It’s actually my birthday.”

 

“Well, don’t let me mess it up.”

 

“Hey,” James starts again.  He pauses.  “What, uh, what’s your name?”

 

“Steve.”  

 

“Ok,” he says.  “I’ve told everyone that 19 is a stupid thing to celebrate, and that I don’t want anything for my birthday.”  He gently swats Steve in the knee.  “But,” he says slyly.  “I think I changed my mind.  Come get some bad Chinese food with me, huh, Steve?”

 

Steve can’t make his mouth move.  He needs to accept.  Decline.  Anything.  Just keep moving.  His brain feels like mush.  Finally he squeaks out, “Back… in there.  When they said was I your boyfriend.  Why’d you say yes?”

 

James presses his lips together.  “I…I don’t know.  Just…seemed right.”


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve gets a new client.

**3.0 STEVE, Thursday 08 January 2015, 0756 hours, Lighthouse Landing Apartments.**

 

Steve wakes to the sound of his phone exploding with a series of ill-timed text messages.  Who tries to get ahold of him at this time of the morning?  He’s trying to sleep…

 

But, god, what day is it?  Why does he have a headache?  His phone chirps another three or four times, and Steve wipes grit from his eyes before rolling over to rescue the insistent device from his bedside table.  He has 16 unread messages from Sam.  What the hell?  

 

Steve blearily scrolls through the one-sided conversation.  Sam’s being annoying on purpose, sending each word in its own text message.

 

_This_

_Is_

_A_

_Reminder_

_That_

_You_

_Were_

_Drunk_

_Last_

_Night_

_And_

_Probably_

_Didn’t_

_Set_

_Your_

_Alarm_

 

Steve passes the back of his wrist over his forehead and watches another half dozen messages roll in.

 

_So_

_Get_

_Up_

_And_

_Come_

_To_

_Work_

 

Steve glances at the clock and does a double take.  It’s going on 8:00.  He’s not late; his first obligation isn’t until 9:00, but his routine is already toppled.  There’s no time for the gym.  He’ll be lucky to get in some breakfast after his desperately needed shower.

 

Steve throws the covers back so cold air can wake him up with rush of goosebumps. He quickly types a reply so Sam will shut up.

 

_I’m up.  I’m coming.  And I don’t get drunk, especially not on Wednesday nights_.

 

It’s the truth.  There’s a touch of dehydration pain around his forehead, but Steve clearly remembers the last time he was actually drunk.  And it’s much further into his past.

 

Sam immediately responds.

 

_Well happy second week of the new year to you too._

 

Steve rolls his eyes.  He shuffles into the bathroom, trying to rid himself of his t-shirt as he writes back.

 

_That’s a stupid thing to celebrate._

 

Another message lands as Steve warms up the shower.

 

_That wasn’t your opinion last night._ A winking face emoji accompanies the words.

 

“Oh, screw you,” Steve mutters.  He turns his phone face-down on the counter, drops his boxers, and steps into the steamy spray.  

 

He rushes to get clean and dresses in dark jeans and a button-down shirt.  Steve checks the time as he’s brushing his hair.  He should’ve put on coffee before jumping in the shower so he’d have a dose of caffeine ready to throw in a travel mug and take on the road.  But of course he didn’t do that, so now it’s a choice between instant and waiting it out until he can get to the office.

 

Steve decides he can’t stoop to the level of powdered coffee, so he guzzles tap water from the kitchen sink before donning his coat and dashing out to his car.  

 

At off times, like 1:30 in the afternoon on a Sunday, it takes Steve under 15 minutes to cruise to the VA.  But when there’s prime traffic, the drive easily stretches to half an hour.  He fiddles with the radio as he settles in for the trip.

 

After parking his Camry beside Sam’s infinitely cooler sporty Mazda, Steve dashes toward the hospital’s outpatient wing.  The side door is unlocked, saving him the scamper through the maze-like halls.  He busts through his waiting room, flipping on lights, and drops off his messenger bag in his office.He runs to the break room for coffee in the 30 seconds or so remaining before he’s due in the 9:00 staff meeting.

 

Sam sidles up beside him as Steve splashes dark roast into his Styrofoam cup.  “Made it, eh, Sleeping Beauty?” he jokes.

 

“No thanks to you,” Steve replies, dumping sugar and powdered creamer into his cup and hurriedly stirring.  

 

“You mean all thanks to me?” Sam cracks a grin.  “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cut it this close in all the time we’ve worked together.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve mumbles, taking a gulp of his slightly burnt coffee.  Alcohol doesn’t affect him so much anymore, and caffeine does even less, but the placebo effect of the morning ritual sets him on the right track for the day.  “You’re gonna be late for the meeting if you keep hanging around me.”

 

They walk together past a few deserted PT and OT rooms and into the conference space at the end of the hall.  The director of therapy services glares at Steve and Sam as they take seats at the long oval-shaped table.  The digital clock embedded in the wall flicks to 9:01.  “Nice of you to join us,” Director Fury says.  His intact eye moves down to the printed agenda in his hands while his glass one continues to stare.

 

“Have a good night?” Nat whispers to Steve across the tabletop.  She feigns busyness with the OT files spread out in front of her, but the smile plastered to her lips shows she’s in full teasing mode.  Clint, the OT sitting beside her, flutters a page and lets out a quiet snort of laughter.

 

Steve’s not about to go into the details of his social escapades in front of his boss, but he struggles to find fault in himself for a few beers and a few laughs among friends, even if it resulted in oversleeping a bit.  It’s just the fact that he’s been stubbornly single and equally morally tight for the past decade that makes everyone keen to make jokes at his expense.  “Yeah, good,” Steve mumbles.  “You?”  

 

No answer comes because Fury calls the meeting to order.  There isn’t much pressing news to discuss, but since it’s the first departmental meeting since the post-holiday return to work, it feels important.  “Alright, folks,” Fury says.  “Welcome back, welcome to 2015.”  He glances around the table.  “New Year’s is over, so you can stop celebrating.”

 

Steve trains his gaze down to his coffee so he doesn’t have to see the eyes he knows are staring at him.  Leave it to Sam and Nat to spread stories through the entire department…

 

“So, as usual with a time like this,” Fury continues, not seeming to care about the implications of his previous sentence, “We’re seeing a lot of turnover.  New patients coming through.”  The director looks at Steve and the other mental health counselors clustered around the far end of the table.  “Clients.  Whatever specific verbiage you use.”  He’s in touch with the talk therapy side of things, but it’s obvious he’s committed to his training as a PT.  His typical brusqueness carries on as he slides files across the conference table.  “Here are the new folks assigned to you for this quarter.”

 

Steve stops the manila folder spinning toward him before it can take out his coffee cup.  Fury continues to run  through the usual spiel about therapist assignments.  “I try to assign therapists based on who’s best equipped to work with each patient’s particular set of issues.  Let me know if you have any conflicts…”

 

Steve practically has the speech memorized.  He stops paying close attention and flips through the papers in his new client file, wondering what the new year has instore for him.  The first bunch of paper-clipped pages gives information on an Air Force Colonel with a spinal cord injury.  It’ll mostly be coming to terms with his disability during the time spent in Steve’s office.  

 

He flips Colonel Rhodes’s packet closed and turns to the next bundle of papers in the file.  Steve’s heart nearly stops when he reads the name.  Barnes, James B.  

 

What if… It can’t be.  It’s not that unusual of a name.  Who knows what the middle initial stands for, anyway.  Steve scans the file quickly, trying not to let his breathing speed up.  He suddenly feels like he’s had too much coffee as anxious sweat prickles to life over his skin.

 

Barnes, James B., age 29, sustained a traumatic brain injury and lost his left arm in an IED explosion in Afghanistan 14 months ago.  He’d been a POW for an undetermined amount of time before that, and he’d just been released from the rehab hospital yesterday.  

 

Whoever this man is, he’s in for a challenging recovery.  But if he’s the one—the one Steve thought he’d lost forever—Steve isn’t sure of his reaction.  The prospect of coming face to face with him again is thrilling.  And terrifying.

 

He’ll find out soon enough.  Steve’s first appointment with him is scheduled for 10:00.


	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James inherits a nickname.

**4.0 JAMES, Saturday 03 April 2004, 1840 hours.  Regal Cinema.**

 

It takes almost a month for James to work up the courage to ask Steve out.  For real this time.  After the incident in the bathroom on James’s birthday, they’d jaywalked across the street for cheap dim sum and ended up chatting and laughing for a couple hours.  They’d exchanged numbers in a friendly-but-with-the-possibility-of-something-more kind of way, but it’s been largely reticent since then as they’ve ostensibly each waited for the other to make a move.

 

Finally James had seen Steve hiking across campus and decided it was as good a time as any to break the expectant silence.  He’d suggested a trip to the movies before he’d even looked up what films were playing.  

 

They walk side-by-side into the theater, laden with popcorn and sodas and sweets.  James has already offered pizza after the movie, but they’re both hungry now.  Turning 19 has done nothing to curb James’s adolescent appetite, and Steve seems to be experiencing the same teenage boy phenomenon.  Or…close enough.  

 

When James had returned to his dorm after their first outing, he’d opened his laptop, thinking carefully of what to search to get the answers he needed.  He’d heard of transgender before.  James likes to think he’s open minded and educated, though his grades sometimes say otherwise.  But there had been a lot more he hadn’t been sure of.  

 

Google had given him a crash course in terminology and dos and don’ts of polite conversation.  It’d seemed simple enough.  People are their identified genders, and birth sex is somewhat worthless in comparison.  But there’s a lot left to the imagination where bodies and minds don’t line up, welcome or not.  And that’s where the perplexity comes in.

 

James likes guys.  At least for the most part.  He’s stuck to calling himself gay for the past year or so, mostly because his parents told him he was confused when he tried to name himself bisexual.  But even that’s not a great way to put it…

 

When James watches the _Star Wars_ prequels, he gets preoccupied with thinking about making out with Natalie Portman.  There’s attraction, but that’s it.  Yet, if some random dude with the right flip to his hair looks at him sideways in the grocery store checkout line, James will practically come in his pants.

 

And now, glancing over the armrest at Steve’s smooth porcelain skin in the dim glow of the movie screen, he feels _everything_.

 

The film turns out to be extremely average as far as comic-driven action flicks go, so it doesn’t feed conversation well.  The walk to the nearest pizza place is mostly quiet, and James racks his brain for something decent to say.  

 

He wants to know all about Steve.  What his favorite color is and what he wants to do when he graduates and whether he knows how to dance and what his body looks like and whether he’d like to crawl in bed together… But James knows it’s too early for that.  And some of it isn’t  his business.

 

When they slide into seats across the greasy table, the menu can only be engaging for so long.   _Cheese or pepperoni?_ is not a topic of conversation that lasts more than a few words.  James watches Steve’s delicate fingertips drum on the plastic tabletop, and questions keep rising in his head.

 

_How long have you been a boy?  Have you always wanted to be a boy?  Do you get a lot of flack for it?  How does your family take it…?_

 

But each one is so intrusive, so rude…  James keeps his mouth shut.  He must be making a face, though, because Steve asks, “What?”  

 

“Huh?”

 

“You look like you’re writing a novel in your head or something,” Steve giggles.  “I didn’t think movies and pizza were that academically challenging.”

 

“Naw, just thinking…” James says, realizing a second too late that he’s actually denied nothing.

 

“What about?”

 

_You._  James sorts through the mess of offensive curiosity laid out in his head and tries to find the most appropriate subject.  Though they’ve never explicitly mentioned it, Steve has to know James knows.  He has to expect something.  Some curiosity, at least.  

 

Finally James speaks.  “Why the name Steve?  Of all the…ones you could’ve picked.”

 

Steve’s expression doesn’t change.  He shrugs.  “It’s easy.  Easy enough.  Same initials and everything.”

 

“But…you like it?” James asks, still testing the waters.

 

Steve slowly nods.  Smiles.  “Yeah, I do.”

 

James returns the nod.

 

“Do you like your name?” Steve asks.

 

That’s something James has never considered.  It’s …always been what it is, from birth certificate to college applications.  “I…don’t really know.”

 

“You ever have a nickname or anything?”

 

“Well, my parents would call me by my middle name sometimes,” James admits.

 

“And what’s that?” Steve follows up.

 

“Buchanan.”

 

“Really?” Steve’s forehead wrinkles in surprise.  “That’s more like you’ve got two last names.”

 

“Yeah, it’s a family thing…” James explains.  “I don’t love it.”

 

“We’ll have to work on it, then,” Steve muses.  “Buch, maybe?”

 

“That…sounds vaguely disgusting,” James laughs.

 

“Ok, maybe not.”  Steve bites his lip as he thinks.  “Buck.  But that sounds like a stripper name.”

 

James snorts and doubles over the table in mirth, both aroused and faintly scared by what Steve was apparently just picturing.  “God.  Fuck.”  He presses his hand over his mouth to stop the raucous laughter that’s starting to draw stares.  

 

“Ok, I’ll soften it up a bit,” Steve promises through his own fit of chuckles.  “Bucky?  Is that better?”

 

“Isn’t that one of those neck pillows full of beanbag pellets?” James asks.

 

“I don’t know.  Maybe,” Steve says.  “But you’re soft.  You’re comforting.  I bet you’re great on airplanes.  It’s perfect.”

 

“God, you’re too much.”  James shakes his head.

 

“Maybe,” Steve grins.  “But you’re Bucky.”


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James attends his first mental health counseling session.

**5.0 JAMES, Thursday 08 January 2015, 0959 hours.  West DC Veterans Hospital.**

 

The light is on in the waiting room, so James steps inside.  His second-hand slip-on Merrells pad quietly across the low-pile carpet.  There’s a couch, but James doesn’t want to sit.  He bounces on the balls of his feet for a moment and immediately pays the price as it makes his already uncomfortable stomach gurgle.  

 

James mentally runs through everything he’s done so far today, just to test himself.  And in case this counselor he’s about to see wants to know.  

 

After waking up on the bathroom floor at o’dark thirty, James had dry-brushed his teeth, showered, and changed clothes.  Then he’d plugged in his television and, after giving up on programming the antenna, watched three or four hours of static while contemplating why this life is supposedly better than being dead.  James hadn’t been convinced that it was.

 

He still isn’t, and he walks a slow circle around the waiting room.  He doesn’t know what time it is.  James supposes he could dig in his pocket for his phone and struggle to flip it open, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort.  There isn’t a clock on the wall.  Just a framed drawing of a bridge and a skyline.  

 

_New York_ , James thinks.   _Brooklyn_.  He surprises himself with the sudden memory.  He doesn’t remember living in New York.  Or visiting there.  But he supposes he must’ve, at some point.  It’s not like it really matters so much.  Lots of people have been to New York.  

 

James finishes his loop and ends up facing the drawing again.  Did he go to college in New York?  Obviously not, since he doesn’t have a degree.  But something about it lingers in his mind…

 

“Hey, sorry about that,” a deep voice precedes the tall, built, blonde man into the waiting room.  He has an armful of files, and he fumbles for a key to unlock the office.  

 

James stares at the back of his head, feeling an odd mix of emotion.  Not a memory, not even nostalgia.  Something like…attraction?  But not quite that, either.  Confusion, James decides.  

 

“I’m Steve.  Nice to meet you…” the blonde man trails off as he looks up at James.  

 

“Um,” James says, wondering if he’s supposed to stutter through his name.

 

The blonde man’s eyes widen in disbelief.  He seems to swallow his words a couple times.  Then, voice thick with wonder, he asks, “Bucky?”

 

James is taken aback.  His thoughts go tangled.  That’s not his name.  It doesn’t even sound like a name.  Is it a joke?  A memory game?  “Who the hell is Bucky?” he finally replies, uneasy as to whether or not it’s the right answer to give.

 

“Oh,” Steve  says.  “Oh.  Well.  Um.”  An odd expression crosses his face.  He finishes unlocking the door to the office and steps inside, dropping his files on the desk in the corner.  “Well, like I said, I’m Steve.  You’re…?”

 

“James?”  It comes out as a question, as if James isn’t sure himself.  But he is.  Isn’t he?  

 

“Alright.”  Steve nods.  “James.  Nice to…nice to meet you.”  A blank, surprised look remains in his eyes.  James wonders if that’s normal.

 

“So.  Um.”  Steve takes a seat in the armchair that dominates the middle of the office.  He gestures to the couch on the far wall and extends a hand, offering it to James.  “You know I’m your mental health counselor.  I’m a social worker, not a doctor.”  He takes a breath.  “So, any issues with your meds have to go through your psychiatrist.  I have meetings with the rest of your therapy team, just to go over how you’re doing.  But everything you say in here is confidential…” He trails off again, looking into James’s face with something brinking on sadness.

 

James looks away, slightly uncomfortable.  “Oh.  Ok.”

 

“This pretty overwhelming, I’m sure,” Steve says.  “The first session is…one of the hardest.”  He grips his Styrofoam coffee cup, swirling it slightly.  “So, I’ll start with a question.”  He sounds like he’s reading from a script, but as a good actor would do so.  The words are imbued with softness, with care, but also a hint of nervous energy.  “What are some things that’re bothering you right now?”

 

“Huh?”  The question is odd to James.  He’s used to inquisitions about pain and comfort-- _does it hurt?_ , _do you like it?_ , _or is this better?_ , that kind of thing.  And he’s learned the proper respective no and yes answers that usually make the inquiries stop.  But this is different.  It’s open ended.  He’s asking for James’s feelings and opinions, and James has spent the better part of the last year convincing himself that he doesn’t have any.

 

“Anything at all.  The first thing that pops into your head,” Steve encourages.

 

“Are you ok?” James blurts.  The counselor’s anxiety is feeding into him and making him more anxious himself.  And just being in the room with him is making him feel things he can’t name and doesn’t know how to feel.  

 

“I’m fine,” Steve replies, finally setting down his coffee cup.  “It’s kind of you to ask.  First appointment of the day.  Maybe I’m a little… spun up.”  He flattens his palms on his thighs.  “Now your turn.  What’s on your mind?”

 

James pauses, thinks for a moment.  What’s on his mind…  It’s a different question from what are you feeling, and an easier one to answer.  He flips through blurry mental photographs of last night, this morning, just now out in the waiting room…  “Um.  My…my stomach hurts,” he murmurs.  “And…I hate my phone.”

 

“Ok,” Steve says.  “Good getting it out there.”

 

James sighs.  Now that he’s mentioned it, the twisting in his abdomen becomes more uncomfortable.  

 

“So, your stomach.  Have you had breakfast?” Steve asks.

 

James shakes his head.  

 

“Do you think maybe you’re hungry?”

 

“I don’t…  Food is…”  James reaches for the words to express the nebulousness of his own body, the weird sick feelings that follow every time he eats.  He comes up with nothing.

 

“Do you wanna take a walk, maybe?” Steve poses.  “We can go down to the cafeteria.”  

 

“Uh…” James hesitates, not sure he wants to ingest anything in front of this guy in case he barfs again.

 

“I know it’s hard to talk the first time,” Steve says.  “I’ll give you a tour.  We’ll get something to eat.  I haven’t had breakfast either.”

 

James isn’t sure if it’s the truth, or if Steve’s just saying that, like some way to artificially relate to him.  He doesn’t know what else to say, though, so he agrees.

 

They stride down the hallway side by side, Steve’s broad shoulder coming maybe an inch above James’s.  

 

“Here’s PT.” Steve points out a room where the heavy wood door is held open with a brass stop.  James can see exercise equipment inside.  

 

Then the room next door.  “OT.  You’re scheduled to be in there twice a week, right?”

 

“Hm.”  James nods.  

 

“I think you’re assigned to Natasha,” Steve says.  “You’re gonna like her.  She’s tough, but the best.”  They move a few steps past the room. Then he leads them out of the therapy hall and toward the center of the building, the middling area connecting wings for outpatient and inpatient services.

 

Once in the nearly-empty cafeteria, Steve lets James pick a table.  He chooses one tucked in the corner, bordered by a window on one side and a wall on the other so he won’t have his back exposed.  

 

“What do you like to eat?” Steve asks.

 

James hesitates.  Nothing.  He doesn’t like anything.  But that sounds petulant, so he shrugs and shakes his head.

 

“Something plain, maybe?  If you’re not feeling so great?”

 

“Ok.”  James remembers his vow from last night, that he’ll never eat again.  Not that he’s setting much store in his own words these days.

 

“I’ll be right back.”  

 

A minute later, Steve’s back with a tray.  He has two bowls of Rice Krispies and two miniature cartons of milk.  He prepares James’s cereal for him, then fixes his own.  “You can always eat here, you know,” Steve says.  “If you don’t feel like shopping or cooking for yourself.  As long as the building’s open, the cafeteria’s open.”  

 

James nods.  He wonders if Steve is reading his mind and pulling thoughts and worries out of his head.  Then he considers the more logical explanation that maybe a lot of service vets have the same issues he does.  It should make him feel better, but it just solidifies his feelings of being pathetic.  He dips a spoon into his bowl and lets his eyes fixate on the top button of Steve shirt.

 

“So,” Steve says after a few moment of silence, save the crackling of the cereal in their bowls.  “Now that we’ve got your stomach taken care of.  What about your phone?”

 

James finishes chewing what’s in his mouth, then releases his spoon to dig into his pocket. He slaps the device down on the tabletop and demonstrates how he can barely hold it steady, let alone flip it open.  

 

Steve nods, cueing him to go on.  James bites the inside of his cheek.   Assuming he can find the right words, there’s no shortage of things to say on this topic.


	6. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve tells his mother he’s met someone.

**6.0 STEVE, Tuesday 27 April 2004, 1931 hours.  Brooklyn College.**

 

Steve sits cross-legged on his bed and opens his cell phone.  He hasn’t talked to his mom in a few days.  Each time they speak, it’s more strained than the last conversation.  Steve wishes he could be as flippant as other college students and ignore his good-kid obligations, but he can’t bring himself to do that.  It’s not something to pull on a woman with cancer.

 

She’d been in remission for a while, through most of Steve’s high school years.  That’s one reason why he’d gone ahead with moving away for college.  But midway through the fall semester, the news of a relapse had dropped.  

 

Steve scrolls to the contact listed under _Mom_ , selects it, and listens as the phone starts to ring.

 

“Hello?” Sarah’s raspy voice answers.  Just one word spoken, and she already doesn’t sound well.  Steve wonders if she’s had chemo today.  He should keep better track of her schedule.

 

“Hey, Ma,” he says.  “How’re you doing?”

 

“You know.  Ok,” she replies.  “How’re you?  Do you still have a cold?”

 

He doesn’t.  That’d been the big news of last week.  It’s her way of operating, though.  Concerned with the small things of physical well-being.  Steve recalls her doting on him as she helped him move into his dorm room, offering to run out to buy softer towels and tastier snacks.  It had been a nice gesture.  Until she’d walked in and out four or five times carrying shopping bags, each time ignoring the pink nameplate the RA had attached to the door.

 

“Naw, I’m good,” Steve says.  

 

“Taking care of yourself?  Got enough tissues and everything?” Sarah presses.

 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Steve insists with the beginning of a laugh.  Leave it to his mother to worry about his stuffy nose instead of her own health.  “James brought over a big box.  The lotion kind and everything.”

 

“James?” His mom asks.  “You making friends?”

 

Whoops.  Steve hadn’t really meant to bring him into the conversation.  They’ve been dating for all of three weeks, but the connection feels so natural they may as well have been together for years.  

 

“Yeah,” Steve says, resigning himself to explaining.  “D’you remember, back when you used to volunteer at the elementary school, there was a kid named James Barnes in my class?”

 

“Doesn’t stand out…” Sarah coughs.  “It’s been a long time.”

 

“Yeah, it has,” Steve agrees.  “Well, he’s a freshman here too.  We’ve been…hanging out.”

 

“Huh.”  The crackling phone line leaches the emotion from his mother’s voice, but Steve is fairly sure there’s not a note of happiness to be found.

 

“What, Ma?” he asks, impatience flitting in.

 

“I mean.  It’s good for you to make friends.  But…what’re you telling this kid?”  Sarah sighs.  “You know how I worry about you, sweetie.”

 

The delicate way her tone turns up with the pronunciation of _sweetie_ makes the phone start to tremble in Steve’s hand.  He’s not sure if it’s outwardly passive-aggressive or just annoyingly motherly, but the syrupy femininity of the term of endearment ruffles him.  Sarah hasn’t once called him by name since he came out, but the pronouns and fluffy nicknames that pass through her lips make her opinion of her child pretty clear.

 

“I…Mom, it’s fine,” Steve says.  “I’m figuring it out.”

 

“Are you friends, or, what, is this someone you’re dating?”

 

“Hey, no need to interrogate me,” Steve says, making a last-ditch attempt to cool the boil before he and Sarah both start to spill over.  “ You tell me you want updates, so I give ‘em to you.”  

 

It feels like that’s all their communication has been lately.  Fodder for arguments lurks around every corner.  They used to be able to talk freely, but now Steve’s defensive and Sarah’s pessimistic.  It doesn’t help that they’re struggling with different ends of the same thing.

 

“I know,” his mother exhales.  “I just…  If you keep this up, you’re going to get hurt.  Or someone else is going to get hurt, and they’re going to take it out on you.”  

 

“Mom.”

 

“You can’t lie to people and expect them not to get angry!”  Sarah breaks off coughing again.

 

“Hey, calm down, Ma,” Steve says.  He’s frustrated, and he wants to shout something back, but the truth is that Sarah’s dying.  And Steve can’t bring himself to fight with her.

 

“You listening to me?” Sarah asks hoarsely.

 

“Yeah.  Sure am.”


	7. 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve tries to do the right thing.

**7.0 STEVE, Friday 09 January 2015, 1643 hours.  West DC Veterans Hospital.**

 

Steve sits at his desk, elbows resting on either side of his keyboard and head suspended between his hands.  He has James’s file open on the computer screen before him.  It feels illicit to be viewing the documents, but more because of who James is than because anything in there is really sensitive information.  As part of the therapy team, he’s allowed to review clients’ service records, medical files, and anything else pertinent to treatment.  But Steve’s never done it before.  And morally, he knows he’s snooping.

 

Barnes, James B.  The B does stand for Buchanan, just as Steve had already known the moment he’d seen Bucky’s face and put it all together.  He has diagnoses for a TBI, amnesia, PTSD, amputation of the left arm, malnutrition, and anorexia.  Not nervosa, the file is careful to spell out.  Just loss of appetite.  Apparently he had an NG tube for the better part of 2014.  No wonder he has food issues.

 

Steve scrolls further back up to the front page of the file, the one that shows next of kin.  James’s mother is listed first, with a California address.  Then his sister, with a hyphenated last name and a Florida zip code.  Steve’s heart pangs with long overdue grief as he sees James’s father noted as deceased.  It must’ve happened recently, or at least in the past ten years.  But, a decade is a long time.  And he hasn’t been a part of James’s life in as long.  So he really has no right to feel like he should’ve known.

 

The editable PDF of James’s personal information provides his address as a studio unit in a block of subsidized apartments maintained specifically for veterans who would otherwise be homeless.  He’s located nearer the VA than Steve, but still in the in-between merging of the suburbs of Falls Church and the urbanity that makes up DC metro.  

 

He has a phone number, no doubt linked to the pay-as-you-go clamshell burner James hates so much.  Steve’s on the point of pulling up the AT&T website and adding a second line to his plan, but it’s not a task for him.  Or maybe it’s just a task for later.  This is supposed to be information gathering only, a glance through the files to confirm what he already knows.  That James is Bucky, and because of it, Steve can’t have him as a client.  

 

Steve needs to close the PDF window and get going; if he delays much longer, everyone will be gone for the day and he’ll have to wallow in awkward guilt until Monday morning.  But before he does, his eye lands on the blank line below James’s phone number.  Emergency contact.  

 

It’s another forced moment of sadness that James, once his priority in life, now doesn’t have a single friend or family member to list.  No old boss, or army buddy, or… Steve tries not to think _or me_.  But James doesn’t remember him.  And maybe before he forgot Steve, he stopped loving him.  

 

Regardless, Steve cares about him.  He would come get him in an emergency.  And that’s all that’s required here.  Steve poises his fingers over his keyboard.  He knows what he’s doing isn’t right.  But, he also can’t really find it wrong.  There can’t be harm in tapping out _S. Rogers, 202-555-0607_.  

 

It’s close to 5:00.  Steve logs off his computer and stands up, pressing his slightly sweaty palms to the thighs of his khakis for a moment to ground himself.  Anxiety tightens  his shoulders and loosens his knees as he heads down the hall toward Fury’s office.  

 

The door to the director’s office is closed, but Steve can see dim light feeding out from under it, so he assumes Fury’s around.  He raises a shaky fist and knocks.  There’s no answer, no flurry of motion from inside the office.  Perhaps the director is making rounds or printing out files or otherwise running around the hospital’s halls.  Whatever the case, Steve intends to wait.

 

He leans into the wall between Fury’s door and the supply closet nestled a few feet down.  It’s been a running joke as long as Steve can remember.  Either congratulations to the janitors for securing such high and mighty locale for their broom cupboard, or condolences to Fury for having such a lowly neighbor.  The setup, plus his current loitering posture, reminds Steve of high school.  Students lining up to speak to teachers seem just as common as ears pressed to off-limits doors to see if anyone’s making out inside.

 

Steve imagines such things happening here in the VA and shakes his head.  If soap operas and hospital dramas are anything to go by, they probably do.  

 

“What’re you laughing at?”  Sam comes around the corner and grins at the expression on Steve’s face.  

 

“Just…something stupid,” Steve says, hoping to brush Sam off before Fury returns.  

 

But at the moment, his plan is doing the opposite of working.  “Ok, you’ve got to tell me now,” Sam says, pausing in the middle of the hallway.

 

“Geez.  You’re nosy,” he playfully chides.  

 

“Makes me good at my job,” Sam says.  “Patients work a lot harder on their exercises if they’re talking.”

 

“And that works for friends, too?” Steve asks, raising his eyebrows in sarcastic bemusement.

 

“You should know better than anyone, Mr. Mental Health Services,” Sam replies with a chuckle.  “Now, what’re you laughing at?  Or, really, what’re you doing out here?  It’s closing time.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Steve starts.  “Waiting for Fury.  Wondering if he’s gonna pop out of that supply closet with a cute nurse or something…” Steve shakes his head.

 

“Well, your mind isn’t in the gutter at all…”

 

“It’s all the hospital shows!”  Steve defends himself.

 

“Don’t tell me you actually watch that shit,” Sam laughs.

 

“Background noise,” Steve says.  “I don’t know…”  He’s almost overwhelmed with the memory that surfaces, uninvited.  James refusing to stand for the plotless daytime TV Steve normally studied to.  One of their few stupid fights that was truly about something stupid, not a metaphor for larger issues lurking beneath the surface.

 

Steve knows his expression has changed when Sam starts to mirror the concerned look.  

 

“Ok.  What’s up?”

 

“I just…really need to talk to Fury,” Steve sighs.  

 

“Dude’s gone for the day,” Sam reports.  “I saw him headed out front a couple minutes ago.”

 

“Shit.”  Steve rubs his hand down the side of his face.  “Why’s his light on?”

 

“Wasting power?” Sam suggests.  “What’s new?”

 

“God,” Steve breathes, frustrated with Fury, with himself for wasting time.

 

“Hey,” Sam says, shouldering up to the wall and facing Steve.  “If something’s really bothering you, and you want to get it off your chest…”

 

“So everyone on our hall will know within the hour?” Steve laughs, more derisively than he means to.

 

“Yeah, I know my track record isn’t great,” Sam says.  “But I know the difference between a joke and…this.”

 

“Ok, yeah, I know,” Steve waffles.  The issue at hand is so intensely personal; he isn’t sure he wants to talk about it.  But the longer he stands here, the louder it screams through his ear canals, demanding attention or consequences of guilt and self-loathing.  As if Steve doesn’t already have enough of that.

 

He takes a deep breath.  “I know one of my clients.”

 

Sam’s forehead slowly wrinkles, and his lips press together.  “And if that was all it was, you’d just go home and wait till Monday to recuse yourself.”  

 

Steve heaves a deep breath.  Unwelcome tears begin to prickle at the corners of his eyes, and he does his best to blink them away.  “Yeah, I…” he starts.  “It’s…it’s him.”  He sinks his teeth into the inside of his cheek and pointedly avoids eye contact with Sam.

 

“Him?” Sam asks, confused at first.  Then he seems to put together all the snippets he knows of Steve’s life story.  “Oh.  Oh my god.  He’s back?  Bucky?”

 

“Yeah,” Steve whispers.  “But…but he’s not.  He doesn’t remember me.”

 

“D’you think, maybe, he just doesn’t recognize you?” Sam poses.  “It was…you guys were, like, before?  Right?”  He gestures vaguely at Steve’s muscular figure.  

 

“Yeah, mostly,” Steve confirms.  “I was on T, but not for that long…”  He takes a steadying breath, feeling unbearably feminine as he swipes at moisture in his eyes.  “It’s more than that, though.  He has a brain injury.  He doesn’t remember a lot of things.”

 

“Yeah, that’s a lot crashing on you,” Sam says.

 

“It…doesn’t really matter,” Steve says, though he knows he’s lying.  “I just…it’s a conflict of interest.  I just need to get him reassigned.”

 

“But…you don’t want to?” Sam asks, correctly guessing the genesis of Steve’s inner turmoil.  

 

“I mean… Who am I to waltz back into his life?  It’s been almost ten fucking years.  We never really broke up, but… we didn’t part well.”  Steve looks at the toes of his shoes.  “He doesn’t know who I am.  And I don’t think he really knows who he is, either.”

 

“Ok, man,” Sam comforts.  He claps a hand down on Steve’s shoulder.  “I get it.  It’s all weirdness.”  He slides his back down the wall until he’s seated on the hallway’s tile floor.  His touch on Steve exerts pressure, forcing him to do the same.  

 

“I’m not saying you should break the rules here,” Sam prefaces.  “But, I’m starting to think about what Fury says.  That he assigns therapists based on who’s best equipped to work with someone’s issues.”  He pauses for a second.  “You do what you want, man, but I think he’s right on with this one.”


	8. 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James is afraid of his feelings.

**8.0 JAMES, Friday 21 May 2004, 0011 hours.  Brooklyn College.**

 

It’s past midnight, and the campus is serenely moonlit.  All other students seem to be either asleep or enjoying themselves elsewhere.  James leans one shoulder into the dorm building’s brick wall.  He can’t keep from smiling as he watches Steve watching him.

 

It’s been two months, more or less, that they’ve been together.  James still gets butterflies every time he sees Steve.  Elated anticipation grips his stomach each time Steve’s name comes up on the tiny flashing screen of his cell phone.  James doesn’t imagine he’ll ever feel anything but pure joy each time he sets eyes on Steve’s face.  That’s how he knows it’s real.  

 

Even so, doubt still looms, dark and imposing.  From the research he’s done and the pure adoration beating in his heart, he knows labels should be the least of his concern.  But he can’t stop himself from floating away from himself and wondering sometimes.  If he loves a boy who was once a girl, what does that make him?  If the boy he wants to fuck doesn’t have a dick, is he still gay?  

 

The consideration gets him nowhere, and James decides it doesn’t matter much, except for when it has to be explained to other people.  And it’s no one’s business most of the time.  Being gay and in a relationship is hard enough.  He cringes at the thought of trying to explain the next level of confusion to people like his parents.  He decides he’ll delay that talk as long as possible.  

 

There are other conversations that need to be had first.  Ones about things like feelings and limits and comfort levels.  Things that really should be part of every relationship, James supposes, but somehow seem to fall by the wayside when there’s barely time to get a condom on before fucking a guy’s ass in the corner of the deserted football locker room.

 

He reaches for Steve’s hand, then trails the touch up his slender arm to his shoulder and around to the back of his neck.  Steve takes a step closer, and James leans down to kiss him.  

 

They move slowly at first, but it only takes a moment for fervor to take over.  James slides his hand down Steve’s back, all the way down to his waistband.  He embeds his fingers into Steve’s t-shirt, crumpling the fabric and brushing the creamy skin beneath.  

 

He wants to run inside and up the stairs so they can fall onto his bed and take it further.  The slender line of Steve’s waist is out of sight, but James imagines it straight and perfect and waiting to be graced with more of his touch.  He wants to know what Steve looks like entirely shirtless, laying chest-to-chest and waiting for James to trail kisses across his collarbones…

 

But will Steve even let James touch him?  Or will the tiny curves to his petite body put up a barrier, restricting James’s access to showing his physical love?   

 

And what is he pining after?  What is he expecting?  The body of a man?  Or a woman?  Something in between?  James’s mental picture is incomplete.  He doesn’t know if there are breasts or not, hips or not.  He assumes not, since Steve’s so thin, but…

 

James slips his arms around Steve’s waist as he struggles to shed his expectations.  He can’t prepare for everything, and there’s no way he’ll know what his reaction will be until they get there.  The body doesn’t matter, he tells himself.  Steve is Steve, and Steve is who he loves.  

 

And the more he thinks on it, the more he knows that nothing else really matters.


	9. 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James develops a routine.

**9.0 JAMES, Monday 02 February 2015, 0824 hours.  West DC Veterans Hospital.**

 

James has his routine down, right to the walk/don’t walk cycle of the stoplight across the street from the VA.  All his therapists have warned about getting too tied up in OCD as a comfort, but for now it works.  He reaches the corner just as the light turns green, and after giving the button for the pedestrian signal a good swat, he lopes down the crosswalk.  

 

Once inside the cavernous complex of the hospital, he points his feet toward the cafeteria.  The girl who oversees the checkout line knows him by now.  

 

“Hi, James,” Darcy calls, waving.  “No junk today?”

 

James looks down at his empty hand.  “No.”  It’s the first time since his initial OT appointment that he hasn’t dragged in a bag of troubling household goods to show Nat.  They’ve already worked through charging his new iPhone and tearing open his mail and putting batteries in the TV remote.  She’d even agreed with his campaign to give up on tubes of toothpaste and bought him toothpaste pellets instead.  

 

The lack of stuff brought in today is good.  It means he’s made progress.  But it also means he’s had a depressing weekend, and he isn’t particularly interested in increasing the list of items he can confidently interact with.  

 

Darcy pours James a cup of coffee and secures a lid on it .  “What flavor you want?” she asks, looking over the display of granola bars beside the cash register.  

 

She has to know;  he’s purchased banana nut every day for the better part of the past month.  “We just got in a ton of cinnamon raisin, if you want to try it.”

 

Does he want to try it?  James doesn’t really know.  He doesn’t choose banana nut granola bars because he likes them, but mainly because he’s never thrown one up.  “Um,” he hesitates.  He really should try it.  It could be catalogued as a risk taken today, and then maybe he’d feel less bad about not preparing for OT.

 

“If you don’t like it, you can bring it back and I’ll get you a different one,” Darcy offers.  It’s incredibly sweet, since James knows the cash will come out of the tip jar on the counter.

 

“I, uh, ok,” James finally agrees.  His palm is getting sweaty thinking about it.  Or maybe it’s because he needs to take his coat off.

 

Darcy  pre-tears the bar’s wrapper for James and lays it across the top of his coffee cup.  James pays, drops his change in the tip jar, and takes his breakfast to his favorite corner table.  As he sips and munches, he thinks cinnamon raisin isn’t so bad, at least taste-wise.

 

He heads into OT at 9:00, shaking slightly from caffeine and nervousness.  It takes him a solid five minutes to nix his anxiety every time the scene changes.  The transition is a little quicker in his therapy appointments, though, since James is getting used to everyone.  

 

“Hey,” Nat greets him, draining her own Starbucks cup and tossing it into the garbage with the precision of a professional basketball player.  

 

“Nice,” James comments quietly.  

 

He likes Nat.  Not necessarily in a physical way, but personality-wise, they’re an unlikely match.  The first time James had stepped into her therapy room, she’d looked him up and down and said, “Well, hey, Barnes.  Drop and give me 20.”  

 

It was possibly the most offensive thing James had heard since losing his arm, but something about Nat’s ridiculously straight face and casual posture made it fucking hilarious.  James had laughed, hard, and for the first time in forever.  Things have rolled easily since then.

 

“No loot?” Nat asks, seeing that James is empty-handed.  

 

“Yeah, Darcy was already giving me flack,” James reports.  

 

Nat laughs and looks James over again.  “I’m guessing you’re feeling better about zippers and buttons.”  She gestures to his jeans .  “Got a hot date tonight or something?”

 

James blushes.  He doesn’t; it’s more embarrassing than that.  He hasn’t done laundry since leaving the rehab hospital and inheriting his sparse Goodwill wardrobe.  It’s simpler to just save his easy-to-wear sweats for Tuesdays and PT than figure out if he can operate a washing machine.  He tells Nat as much, knowing she’s not going to judge him for it.

 

“No problem,” she says, adjusting the left sleeve that’s rolled up to his bicep.  “If you want to bring some wash with you next time, I’ll take you on a field trip to the Spin Cycle.”

 

James cringes.  He feels more flustered than before.

 

“Hey, on your time,” Nat reminds him.  “No rush.”  She turns to a bookcase stacked with manipulation-heavy board games and puzzles.  “We haven’t played Scrabble in a while.  That sound good for today?”

 

It’s fine by James.  Except he doesn’t think he’ll be able to concentrate too well.  His stomach’s starting to hurt.

 

Tuesday morning, James dons his grey heather athletic pants and starts the routine over again.  He apologizes to Darcy for going back to banana nut for his breakfast.  She says it’s fine and pours him a medium coffee even though he only pays for a small.

 

In the PT room, Sam starts the session the same way he always has.  “Anything bugging you?” he asks.  This is a kinder way of asking _what hurts?_ , and James has learned that Sam can see through nonchalant lies of _nothing_.

 

His back does, as usual.  His left shoulder.  His stump arm.  His right wrist and elbow.  Sam can probably run through the laundry list on his own, but he always confers with James before starting treatment.  

 

“I’d love to try some soft tissue work on your shoulder,” he says, looking at James’s stump arm.  “I can tell by the way you hold yourself.  You’re super tight on that side.”  It’s at least the third time he’s suggested it.

 

“I just…” James tries to find the words to express how he feels about it.  It’s not touch that’s the problem.  James washes himself in the shower; Dr. Banner checks his scarring every other week with little issue.  It’s the prospect of stimulating the muscles beneath the tattered skin, bringing to life proof that there was once a functional arm hanging at James’s side.  Whipping up old memories James doesn’t have and blurring the lines between before and after.  That’s what’s unsettling.  “I’m not ready.”

 

“It’s ok, man,” Sam says.  “Let’s check out your right side, though.  I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re starting to get some overuse injuries.”

 

After soft tissue manipulation, it’s exercises.  They’re mostly for his arm, which have helped his biceps and triceps start to pop again, but there are also some for his core and his legs.  James still isn’t as strong as he wants to be, but the workouts leave him tired and ready to visit Darcy in the cafeteria again for his usual lunch of milk and grilled cheese.

 

Wednesday is a repeat of Monday, with another OT session, but Thursday’s a beast of its own.  James scrambles to switch his mindset from physical health to mental.  He knows they’re intertwined.  The same injury that makes it sometimes difficult to write his name has also made it difficult to recall past presidents and remember his favorite type of Girl Scout Cookie.  It’s also what makes him anxious and sad and angry…

 

“I think you should work on developing who you are as a person,” Steve suggests, setting down his coffee mug and folding his hands in his lap.

 

“Huh,” James says, not entirely understanding.  He’s…a man.  A vet.  Boring to be around.  There’s not that much to it.

 

“You don’t have to just move through life.  Come to therapy and that’s it,” Steve explains.  “That’s surviving.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not an ideal place to be long-term.  We want you to thrive.”

 

“Ok…”  It seems like a valid point, but it does little to enlighten him.

 

“Your thoughts and opinions go into making you who you are,” Steve says.  “Like, how you feel about your family.  Or…or your appearance.”

 

“My appearance?”  James thinks.  It’s not like he has much choice in the matter.  One arm, second-hand clothes…

 

“Like…your hair,” Steve says.  “You have it long.  Longer than you did before.  In the Army, I mean.”  He says the last sentence quickly.

 

“Yeah,” James agrees blandly.

 

“You could get a haircut if you want,” Steve suggests .  “But you have it the way it is.  Is it…because you like it that way?”

 

James ponders it for a moment.  He’s just never looked at himself in the mirror anytime in the past year and thought he needed a haircut.  It  either means that something about the nearly shoulder-length curtain of dark brown hair is appealing, or his memory’s too addled to recall grooming standards.  He remembers to wash, though.  So maybe he does like it.

 

“I…guess?”

 

“You don’t have to,” Steve reminds him.  “But, if it helps, I think it looks good on you.”

 

The compliment hits James oddly.  It’s different from Nat playfully telling him he’s cute, or Sam saying he’s getting strong.  Heat washes over him, but not in his cheeks as it usually does.  Warmth blooms in the pit of his stomach, reaching down to the tops of his thighs.  “’Scuse me for a sec…” James says.  

 

When he dashes down the hall to the bathroom, it’s not because he has to throw up.


	10. 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve is also afraid of his feelings.

**10.0 STEVE, Saturday 12 June 2004, 2354 hours.  Brooklyn College.**

 

James had somehow managed to secure a single dorm room for the summer semester.  Steve doesn’t know how such a miracle occurred, but he’s grateful to not have an intrusive roommate adding to the worries on his hammering heart.  

 

They’re flopped across James’s bed.  The lights are off, save for a nightlight, and James has his arm tucked around Steve’s narrow shoulders.  Steve tries to relax against the warmth, but he’s hyper aware of the straps of his sports bra showing up as bulky ridges beneath his t-shirt.

 

James leans in close to press a kiss to Steve’s temple.  It’s not the first time it’s happened, so Steve’s prepared for the wave of heat that trails down from the spot where James’s lips touched.  It _is_ the first time they’ve been in such a…romantic position.

 

Simply being around James is a turn-on, and with this degree of bodily closeness, all sensations are elevated.  If James is feeling anything similar , they should just get on with it and fall happily asleep in each other’s naked arms.

 

Steve wishes it could be that simple.  He wishes taking off his clothes didn’t have the potential to kill the mood with dysphoria’s cold shower.  He shifts an inch so the fabric of his cargo shorts whispers over James’s jeans.  The ripple of movement in the fabric sends out vibrations of pleasure he can fully feel.  

 

James rolls to his side and gets his arm around Steve’s back so they’re positioned to make out properly.  

 

And it’s bliss.  Except for the prickles of fear that keep exploding in a static charge of doubt, like tiny electric shocks set on training his brain away from enjoying it.  There’s no greater feeling in the world than his tongue sliding between James’s lips… _But he’s going to try to touch you and he’s going to hate it and you’re going to hate it…_

 

James makes a happy mumbling sound and starts yanking his shirt over his head.  The glimpse of dark hair trailing from his navel down to his waistband incites a fiery thrill in Steve’s stomach.  He wants to touch it, to keep trailing down…

 

“Here.”  James’s fingers play under the hem of Steve’s t-shirt.  

 

Half of Steve’s mind sends his arms up over his head to facilitate being undressed.  The other half crumples, caving in his chest in and holding tight in fear.  He ends up falling over James’s shoulders and whispering, “I don’t know…”

 

“It’s ok,” James murmurs back.  “I don’t care what you’re wearing, or, or anything.  I just.  I want you.”

 

“I know.”  Emotion quivers in Steve’s voice.

 

“Come’ere.”  James hugs him with one arm while pushing Steve’s shirt up over his barely-existent bust line.  His soft fingertips explore the hard lines of Steve’s ribcage.  “See?  It’s ok.”

 

Pants drop next, leaving James in boxers and Steve still battling wills with the voice of negativity inside him.  James undoes Steve’s zipper before Steve breathes out a worried, “Bucky?”

 

“It’s ok,” James reassures .  “What you look like…it doesn’t matter.”  He lets the heavy khaki shorts fall over the edge of the bed, then pulls Steve on top of him.  Steve’s t-shirt still hangs like a necklace between their chests as their lips reconnect.  

 

James’s erection presses upward into Steve’s hip, huge and hot and already moistening James’s underwear.  Steve is just as aroused, but now he’s embarrassed.  He feels small and insignificant in comparison.  

 

James’s mouth suckles along Steve’s jaw, and his hand comes around to caress the curve of Steve’s ass.  It slides between his legs, and though the touch is welcome, Steve can’t keep from cringing.  

 

“What’s wrong?” James murmurs.  

 

“No, I…” Steve breathes, blinking back tears.  He balls his hands into fists against James’s shoulders.  “I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s ok…”

 

Steve rolls onto his side so his back is to James.  He presses his fingers into the corners of his eyes.

 

“Stevie?”  James pets gently down Steve’s upper arm.

 

“I don’t… I just can’t.  Right now.”

 

“It’s ok,” James says again.  Steve keeps his quavering lips shut tight, waiting for James to say something else, something truthful.  Tell him he hates him.

 

“I love you, ok?  No matter what.”


	11. 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which counseling brings things a bit too close for comfort.

**11.0 STEVE, Thursday 12 February 2015, 1002 hours.  West DC Veterans Hospital.**

 

Steve sees James’s feet pacing in the crack beneath the door that separates his office from the waiting room.  He’s anxious.  But he’s a war veteran with a traumatic brain injury who’s only a month into a new routine, so of course he’s anxious.  And pacing can be soothing, so…maybe it’s a step in the right direction?

 

Steve grips the doorknob and pauses to get his own anxiety in check.  If everything is the same, it’s fine.  If James remembers him, that’s progress.  He’ll save whatever the fuck he’ll write in James’s patient file as a worry for later.  

 

He opens the door and flashes a friendly smile. “Hey, James,” he says.  “Come on in.”

 

James finishes his lap around the empty waiting room and strolls through the doorway.  His right hand is balled up in the pocket of his hoodie, and his left sleeve hangs empty at his side.  The lack of a neatly rolled cuff around his stump makes him look sloppier than usual, but Steve has a hunch he knows what happened.

 

“Did you do laundry?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.

 

“Yeah,” James answers, looking confused.  “I had a, uh, an OT field trip.”

 

“Nice,” Steve congratulates him.  “How’d it go?”

 

“Good.”  James flops onto the couch, and Steve sits in his armchair.  “I can’t fold anything, but I can operate the machines ok.  And the, uh, detergent, as long as it’s in the packets…”

 

“Well, good,” Steve says.  “Sounds like progress.”

 

“Hm.”  It’s obvious James doesn’t want to have to feel proud of himself for starting a washing machine.  But losing his arm is a big deal, as Steve regularly reminds him.  It’s different for him than it is for a regular person learning a task.  But James looks ready to sulk, and Steve decides to change the subject.

 

“Did anything else big happen this week?” he asks.

 

“No,” James mutters.

 

Alright, Steve thinks.  Onto plan C.  “Have you thought about what we did last week?  Worked on thinking through how you feel about things?  Your family?”

 

“Kind of,” James answers.  

 

“What did you come up with?”

 

“I…I don’t know,” James sighs.  “I…wasn’t real close with my parents.  Not since I was…nineteen?  I don’t…really remember my sister.  She hates me now.  So does my mom.”

 

Steve takes a sip of his coffee, pausing in case James wants to say more.  He doesn’t, so Steve asks the next question with butterflies in his ribcage.  “Why do you think that is?”    _Because of me_ , he thinks.

 

“I don’t know,” James says.  He shakes his head and drops his ear so it’s almost on his right shoulder.

 

“Do you…want them to like you?” Steve presses on.  He’s interested in what James will have to say on this one.  Personally and professionally.

 

“Hm.  Naw, I don’t know.  I don’t really think so.”

 

“Is there a reason for that, you think?”   _Like maybe because they’re transphobic jerks who practically disowned you long before you enlisted, let alone came home to be a financial burden_.

 

James shrugs.  “Don’t really care.”

 

“You don’t care, or they don’t care?” Steve clarifies.

 

“I don’t, I guess.”

 

“Ok,” Steve says, letting up his line of questions.  No use pushing if it’s not getting James  anywhere.  He does make a mental note to return to family later.  “Ok.  What about…what about friends?”  He regrets it as soon as the words are out of his mouth, but it’s the next logical thing to ask.  He can’t jip James out of the benefits of therapy because he’s worried about his own feelings.

 

“Friends?” James repeats, sounding confused.  

 

“People you were close with.  Besides your family.”  Steve picks up his coffee again, then puts it down before James can get a good look at his hands starting to shake.

 

James takes a breath, blinks a few times.  It’s the expression he gets when he’s pulling for a thought that isn’t quite there.  “I…I don’t remember,” he admits.

 

_Come on_.   _Think!  It has to be there…_  “Or, a relationship?” Steve poses, wondering if semantics is the problem.  He plays dumb for a moment.  “A girlfriend, maybe?”

 

“I don’t…” James trails off.  “At least, not for a long time.”

 

“A boyfriend?” Steve tries.  “A partner?”

 

“Hey, I don’t…I’m not…”  James bristles, sitting up straighter on the couch.

 

_Oh, but you are_ , Steve thinks.  It’s pretty usual for the vets he works with to deny all traces of homosexuality.  Just another serving of trauma from the military, piled on top of the already full plate.

 

Then a horrible thought strikes.  What if James never thought of him as a man?  What if, for all their time together, he was just the butch girlfriend?  Maybe it would explain some of James’s old protective behaviors, but it seems impossible, what with everything they’d shared.  And James had been supportive, or at least respectful, even when he was inept.  Given the new terrifying possibility, though, maybe it’s better if James truly doesn’t remember.

 

“We don’t have to talk about it if it’s uncomfortable,” Steve says.  “But, this might be a good thing to think about.  To keep getting you more in touch with yourself.”  

 

He pauses to gauge James’s reaction, but there isn’t much of one.  “Do you…find yourself attracted to men?  Or women?”

 

James still doesn’t answer.

 

“Both, maybe?” Steve continues.  “Or neither?  That’s a valid option, too.”  He takes a breath.  “And regardless, you don’t have to want to be in a relationship.”

 

“I…I don’t know,” James sighs.

 

“If you want to be in a relationship?” Steve clarifies.  “Or—?”

 

“I mean, it would be nice, but I just, like, I can’t get it all the way up anymore…” James says in a rush, as if he’s admitting something deep and secretive and embarrassing.  

 

“Oh, god, I didn’t mean…” Steve waffles.  He subconsciously imagines James trying, and the images bring heat to his cheeks and his crotch. “A relationship doesn’t have to be sexual,” he says, trying to maintain his composure.   _Yeah, Rogers, it doesn’t have to be sexual._  “It could be a friendship.”

 

“Hm.”

 

“But, if, you know, if that’s bothering you,” Steve says, “You should talk to your doctor about it.  Your GP or your psychiatrist.  It could be a side effect.”

 

James looks marginally reassured.  Steve smiles and swallows a chuckle.  He’s a man preoccupied with manhood.  It’s so normal it’s almost funny.  It reminds him of the days when he was obsessed with phalloplasty, and James laughed at him for talking about it so much.  “ _Shut up, Bucky, don’t tell me you don’t love dicks just as much…”_

 

Steve pulls himself back to the present, realizing James is waiting for him to say something.  “Would you…want to make friends?”

 

“I…haven’t thought about it.”

 

“It could be nice,” Steve offers.  “Do you sometimes get lonely, living by yourself?  I bet it’s a lot different from being with your unit, or even being in the hospital.”   _And from what we had before all that._

 

“Sometimes.  I guess,” James answers.

 

“Well, if you made a friend, you could go out and do things together on the days you don’t have therapy.”

 

“Mm.”  James nods.  Steve can’t tell from his expression if he’s agreeing or just following along.

 

“You’d…have someone to talk to.  To share your experiences with,” Steve suggests.

 

James’s brow crinkles in confusion.  “Why?” he asks quietly, seeming taken aback.  “I have you.”


	12. 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James is there when Steve needs him.

**12.0 JAMES, Wednesday 17 November 2004, 1423 hours.  Brooklyn College.**

 

When he bursts through the door to Steve’s dorm room, his heart is struck with the outline of the hunched figure sitting on the edge of the bed.  Steve has his phone clutched in one hand, and the other cups his temple.  He looks dazed.  Almost sick.

 

“Stevie,” James breathes.  He closes the door much more quietly, then tiptoes to Steve’s side.  “Hey.”  He sinks down and moves his arm around Steve’s shoulders.

 

Steve exhales shakily, and unspoken words and unshed tears hover on the breath.  He immediately turns his face into James’s neck and all but collapses against him.  

 

“I don’t…” James starts.  “I can’t believe it, your mom…It’s gotta be a lot to take.”  

 

“I mean, she was sick…” Steve whispers, snuffling into James’s collar.  “But, I mean.  My uncle called me.  Like five fucking minutes ago.  She died _yesterday_.”

 

“God, Stevie,” James murmurs.  He wraps Steve tighter in his arms and cards his fingers through  Steve’s hair.  

 

The tears Steve’s been holding back begin to fall.  He slackens completely into James’s side, and James reclines under the slight weight.  He lays their tangle of limbs down across the bed and holds Steve to his chest.  “That’s terrible,” he whispers.  “They should’ve told you first.”

 

Steve’s mouth is muffled with James’s sweatshirt, but the words that seem pent up inside him float up to James’s ears as much as they vibrate through his collarbones.  “He calls and goes, ‘Hey, Steph,’ as if that’s…  As if I’m…”  He chokes through a sob.  “She didn’t…  In any of her records or…  I’m not next of kin or anything.  To her I’m not even me…”  

 

The next gasping sob sounds like it hurts, and James pats Steve’s back to keep his airway clear.  

 

“God, I don’t even know.”  There’s no instruction manual for things like this.  What can he do for Steve when he’s so distraught, grieving and shocked and angry all at once.  James doesn’t know the first thing about dealing with death; his great-grandparents passed when he was little, but besides that, it’s outside his realm of experience.  “I’m…I’m really sorry, Stevie.”

 

“You didn’t…” Steve coughs.  “I can’t believe it.  She was my _mom_.  She should’ve…of anyone…”  He hacks again and draws a hitching breath.   

 

The whistle of air struggling to pass in and out of his lungs sounds like an asthma attack waiting to happen.  “Hey, breathe, ok?” James reminds him.  “In and out.”

 

“I…” Steve wheezes.

 

“Don’t talk.  You’re gonna be ok.”  James runs his fingers up and down the back of Steve’s neck.  His shirt feels cold with the dampness from Steve’s tears.  

 

Steve makes a solid attempt at filling his lungs, but the breath is uneven and shallow.  “You need your inhaler?” James whispers.

 

Steve doesn’t respond, but James pushes him up against his pillows anyway.  He retrieves the inhaler from the edge of Steve’s desk and hands it over.

 

The aerosol spray pumps a couple times, then drops to the mattress as Steve tips his head back and gasps at the ceiling.  

 

“Hey,” James says, grabbing gently at Steve’s knee, hoping the touch will be somewhat grounding.

 

Steve gapes at him for a moment, opening and closing his mouth, blinking precipitous tears from the ledges of his eyelashes.  Finally he speaks again. “I wasn’t…ever what she wanted me to be…”

 

“None of us are,” James tries to reassure him.  

 

“I just…”  His face crumples into a fresh wave of crying.  Steve’s face is ghostly pale, his cheeks flushed, his nose dripping.  He looks so young, so fragile.  He leans in toward James, who holds him again.  

 

After a while, Steve’s head drops to James’s lap.  He strokes through Steve’s short, slightly sweat-damp hair.  “I know it’s not ok right now,” James murmurs.  “But I promise, it’s going to be.  I’m with you to the end of the line, alright?”


	13. 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things are getting clearer, but also so much foggier.

**13.0 JAMES, Monday 16 February 2015, 1027 hours.  West DC Veterans Hospital.**

 

James is tired after his OT appointment on Monday.  His head aches.  He’s supposed to have a meeting with Dr. Stark after lunch to talk about the possibility of getting a prosthesis, but he decides he’ll cancel.  He’s not sure he wants one anyway, and he’s not in the mood to talk.  Not even to Darcy, who’s already waving at him as he steps into the cafeteria.

 

“Want your usual?” she asks, reaching into the glass-fronted refrigerator behind her for a carton of milk.  

 

“I…” James starts.  He’s not hungry.  It’s normal for food to not taste particularly good to him, but today the inside of his mouth tastes disgusting, like burnt copper wiring.  “I, uh, I don’t know.  Don’t…feel that good.”

 

“Aw,” Darcy croons, putting the milk back.  “Chicken soup, maybe?  Or a ginger ale?”

 

James rubs his hand across the back of his head, ruffling up his hair.  It’s as if his forehead is in a vice that’s squashing every thought out of his brain as it comes it.  He glances to the side, through the cafeteria’s doors, and into the open room across the hall.  

 

He does a double take.  The space is normally deserted, but today the light’s on, and someone’s bustling around.  A familiar buff-looking blonde person.

 

“What’s…?”

 

Darcy follows James’s gaze.  “Oh.  Steve.  He does an art therapy thing, like once a month.  You can go if you want.  It’s open to everyone.”

 

“Huh.”  James’s hand is suddenly shaking.  “I’m supposed to.  Um.  With Dr. Stark…” he stutters.  Watches Steve walk around tables and set out papers.  Watches how his jeans hug his ass. “But…I need to go home.”

 

“Yeah, you do,” Darcy says, putting on a sympathetic face.  “We’ll get you something to eat, then go home.  Take a nap.”

 

“I’m not hungry…”

 

“Here.”  Darcy grabs a bottle of ginger ale from the fridge and slaps it down on the counter.  “Take it to go.  You look worse the longer you stand here.”

 

James fumbles in his pocket for money.  There’s a five-dollar bill and a handful of change, which spills over the tile floor as soon as he grabs it.  

 

“Fuck,” he mumbles, his vision blurring as coins bounce before his eyes.

 

Darcy hustles around the register.  “Don’t worry about it.”  She gives his elbow a comforting pat, then presses the soda into his hand.

 

“But I need to pay…”

 

“No, it’s fine.  This’ll cover it.”  She gestures to the 12 cents or so spread over the floor.  “Go home.  I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

 

“I…thanks.”  James drags the back of his hand across his brow, expecting it to come away coated in clammy sweat.  But it doesn’t.  

 

He walks out and lingers for a moment outside the room where Steve is setting up.  He’s bending over a table with his back to the door, parceling out pencils.  James lets out his breath, then turns away quickly.  His head throbs at the movement, and he almost runs to the hospital’s front door.  

 

His insides feel as bubbly as the sweating soda bottle in his hand.  Because he’s sick.  His stomach is sick and his head is sick and his brain is sick…  Being attracted to someone is supposed to be healthy.  Don’t Ask Don’t Tell may be gone from the list of rules governing James’s life, but he’s pretty sure his male social worker still tops the list of people he’s not supposed to want to fuck.

 

James doesn’t wait for the signal to cross the street.  He skitters across the stripes of the crosswalk, ignoring the singular passing car that sounds its horn at him.  He trudges diagonally through the park at the top of his block instead of sticking to the sidewalks as usual.  

 

He’s almost nauseous as he unlocks his front door.  James slams it shut behind him, then presses his back into it.  He slides to sit on the cheap plasticky welcome mat, then clamps the bottle of ginger ale between his knees and forcibly unscrews the cap.  A wave of foamy sweetness rises and cascades over his hand and onto his jeans.

 

He swears under his breath, but quickly decides he doesn’t care.  James takes a couple swigs and doesn’t suppress the coppery belch that surfaces as soon as he swallows.  He feels stupid.  Angry.  That part makes sense, to some degree.  But he also feels…like he’s missing something.  Something important.  Like he’s done something bad, let a lifeline slip through his fingers…

 

With everything he’s had to recall since waking up in Kandahar, James has learned that some things are easier to dig up than others.  This feels like something that would be better left interred, but for whatever reason he’s desperate to know what it is that’s sticking with him, stabbing him in the head and the heart and the gut…

 

James remembers unpacking, throwing everything out of his suitcase on his second or third night in the apartment.  He remembers junking his clothes into a pile because he couldn’t figure out hangers, throwing VA forms into a folder and leaving it to collect dust on the edge of the kitchen table.  It seems like there’d been something else in the bottom of the bag, some other bit of his life not yet dealt with…

 

But with the next throb of his forehead, James can’t remember what he was thinking about.  Or why it was important.  He tips his head back against the door and takes a sip from the ginger ale bottle growing tepid in his hand.  

 

At noon, someone calls to tell him he’s late for his appointment with Dr. Stark.  James groans and tells them he’s sick.  The receptionist offers to reschedule him for another day, but James declines.  He’s supposed to meet the director of therapy services tomorrow to talk about his progress.  They can figure it out then.  

 

He ends the call and crosses the room to collapse face-first onto the bed.  His hand is sticky and his mouth still tastes awful, but James only wants to sleep.  Darcy said he should take a nap.  He’ll feel better tomorrow…

 

The haze of drowsiness comes on quickly, seeping James away from the world of conscious thought and into the more fluid realm where dreams start to feel like memories.  

 

James can almost feel his left arm again, laid out perpendicular to his torso.  It crosses  over someone else’s body, someone curled up at James’s side.

 

Someone slighter, with short blonde hair like corn silk.  James can feel him in his arms, hear his whispering voice in his ears.  

 

He loved a boy once.  He’s sure of it.  Now if he could only remember his name.


	14. 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve navigates more than just grief.

**14.0 STEVE, Sunday 28 November 2004, 1256 hours.  Woodbridge Memorial Funeral Home.**

 

“Hold still a sec,” James mutters as he fiddles with Steve’s tie, intent on getting it into a perfect half-Windsor.  “I don’t know how you got this so tangled up…”

 

“Yeah, well,” Steve snaps, “I don’t wear a lot of ties.”

 

James lets out a breath that tickles Steve’s cheeks.  “I know.  You just gotta get through an hour.  Then we can jump on the train and go home.”

 

Steve leans heavily back into the bathroom’s rickety sink.  “Yeah,” he sighs.  

 

His eyes feel weirdly dry and crusty.  He hasn’t cried since the day he got the call.  Hours spent weeping into James’s shoulder had dried him out, and he’s been quietly depressed and cynical ever since.  

 

James forces the tie to behave, then tucks it into the front of Steve’s jacket.  “There you go,” he says.  “You look…”

 

“What?  Cute?” Steve demands, jutting his jaw forward the slightest bit in a show of attitude as some of this week’s overheard phrases whisper hauntingly in his ears.   _Isn’t it cute how Stephanie’s so much of a tomboy?_

 

“You look perfect,” James pronounces.  He puts both hands on Steve’s shoulders and leans in to kiss his forehead.  “You feeling ok?  Like you can push through?”

 

He really doesn’t, but he whispers, “Yeah,” anyway.  Something that’s neither sadness nor tears is sitting as a hard lump in his throat.  Perhaps it’s anger.  Whatever it is, Steve needs to swallow it before the service starts.

 

“Ok.  Come on.”  James  leads him out of the bathroom.

 

“There you are,” someone immediately says, and overweight footsteps bound across the dusty carpet.  It’s the minister, accompanied by Steve’s uncle.  They exchange an odd look upon seeing Steve emerging from the men’s room hand-in-hand with James, but if they have any comments, they keep them to themselves.  

 

“Have you decided?” The minister asks.  “If there’s anything you want to say?”

 

Steve takes a breath and holds it.  “Yeah,” He says softly.  “I…I’m good.”   _If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all_.  It seems like a good phrase for the occasion.  Steve doesn’t mean to be upset, today of all days.  But he’s having a hard time erasing certain memories from his brain, and it doesn’t seem like the time to stand behind a podium and try to keep from spilling his thoughts and feelings while everyone expects him to do just the opposite.

 

“You sure?” Steve’s uncle presses.  “She’s your mom.  You only get the one chance.”

 

She is his mom.  And she fucking slighted him.  Doing in death what she was too scared or sweet to do in life.  Steve sees events from yesterday unfolding, Sarah’s will slid across the grimy table in his aunt and uncle’s kitchen.  Little parceling of her meager savings account distributed to her siblings.  The majority donated to the hospital that provided her care.  And that was it.  Nothing for her only child.  

 

Certainly nothing for her only son.

 

Steve does his best to justify it.  It was her cash.  There wasn’t a lot of it.  And if that’s how she really felt, Steve’s not sure he’d want to accept it anyway.  But it feels bad.  It feels fucking awful.  And being around all these obscure relatives who keep calling him the wrong name and staring at him and whispering around the edges about what he could’ve done to be cut out like that…

 

It makes him want to barrel around, back into the bathroom and dig shards of glass into his bare flesh, or scream until he can’t breathe, something to let out the expanding darkness trapped in his narrow ribcage…

 

But he can only dig his nails into the back of James’s hand and whisper, “No.  I’m sure.”


	15. 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve fears the worst.

**15.0 STEVE, Tuesday 17 February 2015, 1127 hours.  West DC Veterans Hospital.**

 

Steve’s saying goodbye to a client when his phone starts buzzing in his back pocket.  Caller ID says it’s Sam.  “Hello?” he answers, slightly confused.  Plans are generally made through text.  And Sam ought to be working right now.  Though he isn’t supposed to, Steve happens to know a particular name graces Sam’s schedule in today’s 10:30 to 11:30 slot.

 

“Get down here right now,” Sam says, the utmost seriousness drawing hard lines in his voice.  

 

“What’s going on?” Steve asks.  His heart hammers, torn between concern and guilt.  Did something happen to James?  Did someone find out about James?

 

“You’re his emergency contact,” Sam says.  “Get down here.  He’s having a seizure.”

 

“Oh, god.”  Steve crosses his office in two steps and sprints down the hall, leaving his door wide open behind him.  “What happened?  You got medical coming?”

 

“Yeah, should be on their way,” Sam replies.  Steve hears shouts over the line in the background.  He can’t be sure over the imprecise connection, but he thinks one of the groaning sounds has to be coming from James.  

 

“He finally let me work on his arm.  Or, you know, his stump,” Sam continues.  Steve hears the distraction in his tone.

 

“Ok, ok, I’m almost there,” Steve says as he rounds the corner and dashes toward the OT and PT rooms.  He hangs up as he crosses the threshold.  Every piece of exercise equipment is vacant, and it seems as though all the therapists and patients from the whole hall are gathered in a cluster around a padded table at the side of the room.  An older guy with a Vietnam Vets hat on steps back as Steve races toward the commotion.  

 

“Hey,” Sam waves him over from where he’s loosely holding James on his side.  James’s dark hair obscures his face, and his body from shoulders to ankles is trembling.

 

“How long’s he been going?” Steve asks, stooping so he’s level with James’s head.  

 

“A minute? Forty seconds, maybe?  I think he’s done, just kinda coming up now…”  Sam pats James’s shoulder.  “James?” he says, speaking slowly and calmly.  “Can you hear me, bud?”

 

James moves his head and shoulders ever so slightly.  A soft, wet-sounding gasp comes from under the curtain of hair, and he jerks under Sam’s touch as he vomits down the edge of the table and onto the floor.

 

“Alright, you’re alright,” Steve intones.  His hand hovers an inch over James’s arm.  He hasn’t touched him since…since before James came back.  It seems like a part of the line that’s not to be crossed, but in this most desperate of times, Steve can’t help himself.  He leaves the lightest pressure above James’s elbow, then carefully brushes the long brown bangs out of his eyes.

 

James’s expression is glazed.  His pupils are dilated, and his gaze flicks around, unfocused.  He retches again.  

 

“You’re ok, Buck.”  The words are out of Steve’s mouth before he’s even sure what he’s saying.  The image in front of him is juxtaposed across memories, foggy past moments he didn’t realize he still carries.  James drinking himself sick on Halloween, laying across Steve’s lap in his pirate costume and spilling vomit across the floor of his dorm room.  James in the throes of appendicitis, begging Steve to come and cool the back of his feverish neck.  “I’m here,” Steve whispers.  

 

Spit drips off James’s lower lip, and Steve wipes it away with his fingertips .  “You’re gonna be ok.”  

 

But Steve doesn’t know that.  What if he’s not ok?  What if the blank expression coating James’s pallid face is all there is?  All there will ever be for him?  Panic rises up in Steve’s chest as he murmurs it again.  “You’re gonna be ok.”

 

“Ok, clear a path,” Steve hears from behind him.  The clattering of a metal gurney butts up to the PT table, and nurses hasten to grab James at the shoulders and hips to prepare to move him.  

 

Sam hurriedly fills them in.  “Male, around thirty?”  

 

Steve nods, though no one asks him.  James is 29 and a half.  His birthday is next month.  March tenth.

 

“Started seizing during his PT session.  Threw up.  Not real responsive.”

 

“What’s his name?” a petite blonde nurse asks.

 

“James Barnes,” Sam replies.

 

“Ok, James, on the count of three, we’re gonna move you backwards,” the nurse warns.  Three sets of medically-trained hands scoot him to the gurney, dragging paths of beading wetness from where he’s vomited and pissed himself.  They leave him curled on his side and wheel him toward the side of the hospital housing the ER and inpatient wards.

 

Steve jogs to keep pace beside the gurney.  The delicate female nurse who’s not pushing gets a blood pressure cuff around James’s arm.  The fingers of his right hand twitch, and Steve reaches for them, wrapping James’s clammy fingers against his palm.

 

“You don’t need to come with him,” the nurse behind James’s head says.  “We’ll notify his emergency contact once he’s checked in.”

 

They must’ve missed the part where Steve is his emergency contact.  Which is good, because it also means the nurses don’t recognize him.  “I’m his contact,” Steve says.  

 

“Oh.  You’re…family?”

 

It’s no one’s business but his and Bucky’s, and Steve almost says that.  But James doesn’t even know what Steve’s done, what lines of respect and confidentiality he’s crossed.  “He’s…he’s my friend.”  It’s true, even if they’ve never gotten to it in their therapy sessions.  “My…boyfriend.”  It’s not truly a lie.

 

All talk dissolves into floating numbers of blood pressure, and Steve’s hand is displaced in favor of the finger clip that measures blood oxygen levels.  

 

“Alright, here we go, James.”  The nurses drive the gurney through a set of automatic double doors, and across the ER to a curtained exam room.  “Hold tight while we move you…”

 

This time, Steve slips his forearms under James’s chest and helps heave him onto the waiting bed.  Steve lingers for a second on James’s collarbone, hoping to give him a modicum of comfort before he’s poked and prodded.  He can see one of the nurses prepping electrodes to stick to James’s chest.

 

“Stevie?”  It’s the quietest whisper, almost drowned out by the gurgle of saliva behind his lips.  

 

Steve doesn’t expect to hear it   He hasn’t heard the nickname in…god knows how long. “Yeah,” Steve murmurs back.  “Yeah.  You used to call me that.”

 

“Incoming,” one of the male nurses says, reaching under the collar of James’s shirt to stick self-adhesive circles to his chest.  The protruding wires look like they’re ready to shock him, but Steve knows they only connect with the glowing machine that measures heart rate.  He murmurs the message to James, hoping it’ll calm the wide, fearful look growing in his eyes.

 

James makes a bubbling hum as the cold metal discs stick to his chest.  “It’s alright,” Steve says.  The horrible uncertainty still hangs around his thrumming heart.  What if he’s lying?  He looks into James’s dark eyes, but is distracted by the diamond tears clinging to his lashes. “I promise.”

 

A white-coated doctor rips back the curtain and joins the exam room.  Two of the nurses exit and rush on to the next patient, leaving Steve alone by James’s side while the remaining nurse continues to fiddle with the heart monitor.  The nurse repeats what he knows to the doctor while Steve stays silent, gently wiping snot and leftover vomit from James’s face with his thumb.

 

“Is he responding to stimuli?” the doc asks.

 

“No,” the nurse starts, but Steve cuts him off.

 

“He said my name.”  The miracle of it hangs at the forefront of Steve’s mind, battling it out with concern and panic and every _what if_ in the playbook.  Because if James gets well enough— _when_ James gets well enough—it means progress.

 

“So, alert, but foggy,” the doc clarifies.  She addresses Steve directly.  “Is this the first time he’s had a seizure?”

 

“I-I’m not sure,” Steve admits.  “Definitely the first in a while, at least.  He has a TBI…”

 

“Got it.”  The doc makes a note on her clipboard.  “Well, we’ll run tests.  Monitor him for a little bit.  But I’m sure you know, sometimes weird stuff just happens.”

 

“Yeah,” Steve sighs.  Lord, does he know.  James isn’t the first to come through Steve’s office with memories of his army buddies but not of the lover left at home, or knowledge of how to load a gun but not how to use toothpaste.  The ricochet of a brain against a skull against a rock or a window or a piece of exploding Humvee lies dormant sometimes. It waits to bring death and destruction later, driving folks to binge drinking and suicide as often as it makes them drop from aneurysms and seizures…

 

“James?” the doc tries to get James’s attention.  James blinks dazedly .

 

“I’m gonna draw some blood.  Then we’re gonna do an LP, ok?  Just to check whether or not you have an illness.”

 

Steve knows what that stands for.  A lumbar puncture.  Cerebrospinal fluid from the small of the back sucked up a fat needle.  He remembers the horror stories from his mother’s nursing career.  “Can I stay with him?” he asks.

 

“For a while.”  The doc preps a syringe while the nurse ties a long rubbery strap around James’s upper arm.  “You’ll have to step out during the LP, just to minimize the risk of contamination.”  She catches Steve’s worried gaze.  “You can stand right outside the curtain.”

 

“Ok,” Steve exhales.  He watches the doc swab the inside of James’s elbow with alcohol and insert a needle into the vein.  James twitches, but doesn’t make a sound.  “I won’t leave you,” Steve murmurs to him.  “I’m with you to the end of the line.”


	16. 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which family is a difficult word to define.

**16.0 JAMES, Thursday 16 December 2004, 2048 hours.  Foggy Bottom Metro Station.**

 

The next trip to Virginia goes so badly they decide to flee to DC.  

 

“God, Stevie,” James says.  They sink onto a bench in the echoey tiled station, and James pulls Steve’s slim frame toward him until they’re hip-to-hip.  Their suitcases stand a foot or so away like awkward spectators.  

 

When James  had invited Steve to stay over for the holidays, he’d expected his family to welcome his newly orphaned boyfriend with open arms.  When James had called last week to explain the situation, they more or less had.  

 

But then they showed up on the brick-inlayed doorstep of James’s childhood home, and things had gone…differently.  It had only taken one round of coffee and cookies at the kitchen table for James’s parents and kid sister to visually dissect Steve’s pixyish appearance and decide the guest room was not available for the holidays after all.

 

“We can’t, James,” his father had explained.  “Not under this roof.”

 

Steve had insisted on leaving alone.  “I’ll just go back up to New York.  Find an intersession class or something.  Don’t worry about it.”

 

But the tremor in Steve’s fingers that had been there roughly since Thanksgiving had leached up his arms and incited a chattering in his jaw, and James couldn’t let him.  

 

“No.”  He’d tucked his arm around Steve’s shoulders and put his foot down.  “No.  We’ll go someplace else.  I don’t wanna be here either.”

 

They’d taken the train to DC, largely because it’d been cheaper, and tooled around like luggage-toting tourists till darkness had fallen.  

 

“Buck,” Steve whispers, snuggling against him on the cold, hard bench.  “I’m…I’m really sorry.”  

 

“You didn’t do anything,” James insists.

 

“But…your family.  I…I don’t wanna mess it up.  I feel like I’ve already messed it up.”  He snuffs in a breath of James’s coat-clad shoulder.  “You don’t deserve this.”

 

They’ve already been through this  a few times.  He respects that Steve feels bad, but in reality, the fault lies with him.  “What, a loyal boyfriend who’s attractive and supportive and the absolute love of my life?  Damn right, I don’t deserve it.”  James lets out a frustrated chuckle.  “After I dragged you home to get kicked out by my fucking closed-minded family?  You should kick me to the curb.”

 

“No, you were trying to do something nice,” Steve placates.  “I’m the problem.”

 

“Nothing about you is a problem,” James snarls, anger starting to rise.  “It’s everyone else who fucks things up.”  His voice echoes around the nearly deserted subway tunnel.  

 

Steve sighs, long and loud.  Then he pulls the cuff of his sweater over his hand and uses it to drag the beginning of a tear track from his face.  “You’re just saying that,” he accuses softly

 

“Hey,” James says, dropping his register to a matching whisper.  “I’d never just say that.”  He glances around for a second.  “I don’t think this train’s ever going to come.  Want to walk some more?”

 

They emerge from the underground station across the street from Arlington National Cemetery.  Lights illuminate the graves from all around, and wreaths and other tokens of Christmas spirit drape many of the stones.  The combined holiday warmth and general soberness of the scene hits home, making James’s heart sink a few inches.  

 

“You know I love you, right?” he says softly.

 

“Yeah,” Steve replies, wrapping his icy fingers around James’s hand.  “Always.”


	17. 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James is dragged through the slime and the muck.

**17.0 JAMES, Tuesday 17 February 2015, 1154 hours.  West DC Veterans Hospital.**

 

He wants to tell Steve that he’s ok.  He wants to wrap his damp lips around the words and spit them out, because he really is alright.  He doesn’t know what memories have struck through  his head in a nebulous ball of nostalgic lightning, but it’s something.  And he knows it’s something.  

 

His brain is complicating things, though.  He remembers shadowy scenes from his past— _their_ past—but he can’t quite wrap his head around speaking.  Either that or it just hurts too much.  And his stomach’s decided to fill his entire chest, pushing his lungs away to the back of his ribcage and swapping the relief of a deep breath with the urge to throw up.

 

James wants to reach up and toss his arm around Steve’s neck, hold him close.  If he can’t say anything, maybe it would just be enough to feel his warm body against his own and let his hand embed in Steve’s soft blonde hair.  But he can’t.  He’s not sure he can execute the movement.  And there’s a biting needle in his arm now, stealing his blood while a cold gloved hand presses his fingers into a fist.

 

There’s pain in his arm.  Then pressure.  The scent of plastic wafts under James’s nose as the sound of tearing tape plays past his ears.  A pad of gauze is attached to his inner elbow.  Almost simultaneously, James’s shirt is lifted several inches up his back.  His sweats shift down to his hips, bringing their cold, heavy wetness to a different place on his leg.  Anticipation and dread flood through him, forehead to knees, but James doesn’t know what he’s reacting to.  There is no threat, no hostiles in the area.  No orders have been issued.

 

The commander is mumbling.  But the uniform is all wrong.  No, she’s a doctor.  Must be one of the civilian medical staff that hang around the tent city in Kandahar.  But no, Steve’s here, so James can’t be in Afghanistan.  

 

He tries to feel out for Steve, looking and listening and twitching the fingers on his trembling hand.  But now he can’t find him.  

 

“…Bucky…”

 

That’s…that’s his name, right?  That means Steve’s here somewhere and James needs him.  He reaches out again, this time feeling his shoulders shift against the cot under his body.  Coldness at his low back makes goosebumps erupt over his entire form.  Latex fingers palpate his lumbar vertebrae.  

 

“Stevie,” James breathes.  Sterilized air rushes down his throat, making his teeth ache with its chill.

 

“Hold still,” someone says softly.  

 

Then there’s fire.  A white-hot nail pounds into his back, driving the ache behind his forehead up to 11, then leaving it in the dust as the wound opening up in his spine rockets to 12, 15…  A thousand on the one to ten scale.

 

James can’t breathe.  He realizes after a moment that it’s because he’s screaming.  He tries to draw in air, but it won’t go down his throat.  He’s in spasms with agony.  Everything looks like the swirling red of a sandstorm, smells like fire dust, tastes of burning copper.  

 

James’s face contorts against the bedding beneath the side of his face.  His eyes are bleeding; his brain is melting out of his ears.  It can’t be possible for the pain to increase, but it does.  Two thousand.  Twenty-five hundred…

 

“I’m here, Buck.  It’s gonna be ok.”  Steve.  But far away.  Under water.  So completely separate from where James is being eaten alive by fire.  

 

“I need you to hold still, James.  Then it’ll be over quicker.”

 

It feels like the corner of an anvil is cramming into his bone, crushing the fibers of his body under pressure and tearing sharpness.  

 

James tries.  He tries to say something.  But the words are lost in a drawn out groan.  

 

“Almost finished...”

 

He’s almost dead.  Why can’t the IED explode his head along with everything else it’s destroying?  The shrapnel lodged along the ridge of his back digs into his veins, muscles, bones, severing tendons and sending out bursts of hot fluid.  

 

“Alright, James, hold on one second.”  

 

Consciousness is flickering, and things happen too fast.  Out of order.  Pain and fear and oozing and electrical fires…  Tearing tape and godforsaken soul-fucking nausea and dammit, _don’t touch me_!  James’s teeth burst the skin on his lip, and hot rustiness seeps over his tongue, matching the gunpowder scent that sticks to the inside of his nose.  Concrete solidifies in James’s sinuses, and the weight imbalance brings on vertigo.  

 

“All done.  Your friend can come back in now.”

 

James doesn’t have friends.  There’s Dugan and Morita and a couple others from their unit.  Then there’s Steve.  But buddies aren’t the same as friends.  And Steve’s, well…something else.

 

The metallic rustle of rings on a bar sounds like another detonation in James’s ears.  He tries to swing his arm over his head to protect from the falling rubble, but his limbs are still too heavy to obey his swirling intentions.  

 

But he doesn’t need to.  The slightly swaying fabric walls aren’t falling in on him.  But the motion, combined with the way the bed under his body is dipping, swells into waves of seasickness behind James’s forehead and down in his throat.  

 

“Hey.”  Steve’s hip is level with his face.  “Ok if I touch you?”

 

James can’t force his mouth into the shape of _yes_ , but it’s what he means when he shivers and groans under the shadow of Steve’s outstretched hand.  

 

“Yeah?  Ok?”  Steve pushes James’s hair back out of his eyes.  “It’s over now.  No more tests.  Just have to wait for your results.”

 

James breathes through the words, mulling each one over until he has a solid sense of understanding.  No more.  He can sleep now, possibly?  He’s exhausted.  It feels like he’s been awake for days.  But if he shuts his eyes, will Steve still be here?  Or will he return to consciousness in his bare-bones apartment, or sandy Kandahar, or somewhere a long way lost…?

 

“Try to relax, ok?”  Steve rubs James’s shoulder down to his elbow, lingering slightly over the edges of the papery tape that tugs on his skin and arm hairs.

 

Try.  All he has to do is try.  Try to sleep.  Or try to remember.  This…this is familiar, but it’s confusing.  Steve wasn’t with him in the hospital, but Steve was with him.  Before he lost his arm.  Before the Army.  They’d touched like this before.  They’d touched many different ways.

 

“I…” James croaks.  “I…know you.”

 

“Yeah, Buck.”  Steve’s voice is cloudy with emotion.  Sniffs punctuate his words , making his tone softer and breathier, so he sounds more like the person James recalls.  “Yeah, you do.  You’re doing so good.”

 

James can’t keep his eyes open.  They’re watering too much.  He can feel Steve’s hand, the flat of his warm palm covering his forearm between the tape on his elbow and the clammy sweat that’s crept up to his wrist.  James twitches his fingers, and Steve immediately lets up the comforting pressure.  “Sorry,” he apologizes.

 

“Nn…”  That’s not what James meant for him to do.  He wiggles his leaden fingers again, trying not to move the rest of his body to save it from erupting in pain.  He summons his strength and lifts his hand an inch from the mattress.

 

“Ok.  There you go.”  Steve entwines his fingers with James’s and strokes his knuckles with his thumb.

 

There’s safety in Steve’s presence.  And so many long-gone memories.  They flutter around James’s head, too fast for him to see the specifics, but slowly enough to lull him toward sleep.  He blinks at Steve, trying to communicate everything in a glance even though he isn’t sure what he’s remembering.  

 

Steve squeezes his hand and gives a small, sad smile.  James can’t seem to arrange his face in the same way.  So he just lets his eyelids drift closed.


	18. 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve and James move in together

**18.0 STEVE, Tuesday 01 February 2005, 1359 hours.  Chateau Ridge Apartments.**

 

They’ve had the keys since this morning, and the apartment is mostly put together.  Steve’s been following James up and down the stairs for hours, lugging boxes and trying to unpack without making a mess.

 

James had been convinced they could make the move themselves, so he’d rented a U-Haul instead of hiring professionals.  He’s right in the aspect that it’s possible.  It’s just challenging.

 

Steve wishes he had family or friends to call on, but bad luck and perpetual shyness have ensured he doesn’t have either. So he’d been stuck struggling to lift one end of the couch as James had powered it up nine flights of stairs.

 

Steve doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s exhausted.  A faint tremor hovers in his muscles, and soreness is already setting in.  He hates his frail body and the weakness that comes with it.  He tries to focus on unloading the box in front of him, but all Steve can think about is James struggling up the stairs with the futon frame.

 

He’d offered to help carry it, though he’d known he really couldn’t.  James had only one choice when he’d said, “No, I got it.”  Then he’d said something about Steve getting out the sheets and blankets so they could make the bed right away.  He was probably trying to be logical, but Steve had taken it badly.  

 

“Yeah, I’m the housewife, right?” He mumbles under his breath as he grabs sloppily folded pillowcases from the box.  Steve leaves the bedding in a pile near the wall.  He throws towels over the bar in the bathroom, then sulks his way back to the kitchen to find something else to do.

 

He’s sorting art supplies from cutlery when James brings the cheap wood frame through the doorway.  He’s sweating and red-faced, and Steve jumps up to help guide it through the narrow hall.  

 

“I’m good, Stevie,” James pants.  “I’ll get the mattress for it here in a second.”

 

Steve shakes his head.  He wants to help carry the damn thing, not rush to make it up with neat hospital corners and decorative pillows.  He rolls his eyes at James when he hears the heavy piece of furniture bang against the bedroom wall.

 

Once the truck is emptied, James joins Steve in unpacking their belongings.  He tears tape from the cardboard and starts chucking things out, seeming more intent on breaking down the box than putting their belongings in place.

 

When he almost trips over one of his framed drawings in the middle of the living room floor, Steve cracks.  “Can you put shit away after you take it out of the box?” He snaps.

 

“Oh,” James says, looking around like he’s just now aware of the mess he’s made.  “Mm. Yeah.”  He reaches for the picture between Steve’s feet.  “Where do you want me to hang this?”

 

It’s a silly sketch of a monkey riding a unicycle.  James had it framed as a joke, but Steve had appreciated it.  He’s not sure he does anymore, though, and he wants to blame the furry creature for his frustration.  “I’ll do it,” Steve says, with a little more aggression than he means.  He snatches the frame out of James’s hands.

 

He gets a hammer and a nail and chooses a spot in the middle of the wall.  Steve stands as tall as he can and reaches both arms over his head.  The hammer’s not actually heavy, but he’s already so spent that it trembles in his hand.  He gets a couple weak pounds in before it slips against his sweaty palm and crashes to the floor with a sound loud enough to wake the dead.

 

“Fuck.”  Steve takes a step back to pick up the tool, but blood rushes to his head as soon as he bends over.  He sits down on the floor before he can pass out and make the situation even worse.  

 

“Are you ok?”  James is bending over him.  He sits heavily at Steve’s side and pats his shoulder.

 

Once he’s stopped seeing stars, Steve shrugs him off and struggles to his feet.  He grabs the hammer again and is about to give the nail another good whack when James stays his hand.

 

“Stop.”  He keeps his fingers wrapped around Steve’s wrist.  “Calm down, ok?”

 

Steve drags his eyes up to meet James’s.  His resentment melts toward despair, and he blinks hard against the sudden presence of tears.

 

“I just want to hang a fucking picture.”

 

“I know,” James says.  “But just stop.  It’s not worth getting upset about.”

 

Getting upset.  He’s not a princess with a rained-out tea party.  He’s not a girl.  He’s not having _emotions._

 

What is he doing?  It’s not even what James said.  He’s putting words in James’s mouth, feeding the dysphoria clunking around in his own head.

 

“Sorry, Buck,” Steve murmurs.  He turns and presses his forehead to James’s chest. “This is...stupid.”

 

“It’s ok,” James says.  “We don’t have to finish moving in today.  We could, I don’t know...study?  Watch your crappy TV shows?”

 

Steve smiles in spite of himself.  When he lifts his head, James is smiling too.


	19. 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve is found out.

**19.0, STEVE, Tuesday 17 February 2015, 1337 hours.  West DC Veterans Hospital.**

 

James sleeps uncomfortably for the hour or so it takes for his lab work to be processed.  He keeps opening his eyes and blinking confusedly before shutting them again and sighing, sending soft gusts of warm air across the blankets.  Steve clutches his hand with the same fervor James sustains in his exhausted grip.  

 

A nurse comes in to check his vitals once, and James stirs.  “It’s ok,” Steve soothes, in case the swipe of the temporal thermometer is threatening.  

 

“He’s a little warm,” the nurse says, showing Steve the 98.9 on the display.  “But nothing else out of the ordinary.”

 

Of course James is running hot.  Sweat beads on his forehead and upper lip, and the armpits of his t-shirt are soaked through.  He probably feels like he’s been stabbed in the back.  “I’m gonna get you feeling better,” Steve whispers.

 

The curtain around the exam room shifts, and Steve expects the doctor to reappear, maybe with paper printouts or at least verbal results.  But the figure standing in the backlit gap between the fabric walls is Fury.

 

He looks at James for a moment, then shifts his eyes to Steve.  He focuses on the interlaced fingers, then rakes up to Steve’s guilty face.  “Didn’t expect to see you here, Rogers,” Fury says.

 

Steve’s first thought is that he knows.  Someone’s told him, or he’s magically figured it out.  But that can’t be right.  No one knows but Sam, and Sam promised to keep the confidence.  And Steve trusts him.  “I, uh, didn’t expect to see you here either, sir.” Steve replies nervously.

 

“I decided to walk down when I found out my 1:00 didn’t show because he’s in the ER,” Fury explains.  His voice shifts upward slightly as he continues.  “Now, I know Barnes sees you on Thursdays.”  

 

Steve feels his cheeks growing hot.  His palms feel as slick as James’s clammy hand.  This is going nowhere good.

 

Fury pulls a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of his jacket.  “So, unless you happened to be his emergency contact…”  The sheet unfolds, and Fury fluffs it loudly before holding it outward so Steve can see the crawling lines of black text on James’s patient profile form.  “You have no reason to be down here.  Missing appointments with your other equally important clients.”

 

Shit.  Steve hadn’t considered that.  Until the words left Fury’s mouth, Steve had completely forgotten he had other clients.  He’d forgotten anything in the world existed apart from Bucky.  

 

“Rogers.  This is seriously overstepping the bounds of a therapeutic relationship.  Why are you his emergency contact?”  Fury’s intact eye bores into Steve’s skull, and his glass one gives off a glint reminiscent of a flash of anger.

 

“I, uh.”  What’s he going to say?  What words can possibly smooth this over?  Steve blurts out the truth before he stops to think about it.  “I…know him.  From a long time ago.”  For a second he holds onto hope the information will be placating, but then he realizes what he’s admitted.

 

“And you didn’t think about telling me over a month ago when you were assigned as his therapist?”  Fury’s irritation is apparent, and it’s quickly revving to a stronger emotion.

 

James twitches.  Steve’s free hand jumps to James’s shoulder.  Then he slowly looks back to Fury.  “I…I did think about it.”

 

“But you decided not to.”

 

He did.  Steve decided not to.  He’s not going to mention talking it through with Sam; there’s no need to draw another innocent person’s name into this.  So he simply answers, “Yeah.”

 

“So.  You provided therapeutic services even though it was improper.  You allowed him to list you as his emergency contact.”  Fury counts off the offenses on his fingers.  “Are you carrying on a romantic relationship with your client?”

 

“No, he didn’t,” Steve backtracks.  “I put myself as the emergency contact.”

 

“Rogers…”

 

“He doesn’t have anyone else!”  Steve realizes his voice is louder than it should be at James’s bedside, and he gets his volume in check.  “He needs someone to count on for situations like this.”

 

“Are you having a romantic relationship?” Fury asks again, enunciating each word.  

 

“No,” Steve says firmly, a little guiltily.  “Not…not anymore.  We did a long time ago.”  A  sunburn-bright blush scorches his face. “We were kids.  He doesn’t know me anymore.”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Fury says flatly.  

 

“I know, and I don’t mean it to be an excuse or anything.”  Steve looks down at James, who’s awake and disoriented .  “Fire me if you want to.  I just…I just want to help him.  I made a promise.  And I want to keep it.”

 

“Well, you should’ve kept the promise you made to integrity when you accepted your position here,” Fury sighs.  

 

“I said fire me if you want to,” Steve repeats.  Thoughts thrum a mile a minute, but he knows deep in his heart that nothing’s ever going to be this important.  Ever.  He can always get a job.  That’s not a problem.  But the prospect of losing James again is unthinkable.

 

“You’re on unpaid administrative leave.  Starting right now.”  Fury crumples James’s patient profile paper and shoves it back into his pocket.  “I’m not stupid enough to fire my most effective mental health counselor on the spot.  But I will if you can’t stop thinking with your dick…or whatever the hell you’ve got… and start respecting professional courtesy.”

 

The comment is biting, and miles past the line of appropriateness.  He’s been nothing but respected at the VA; his differences are always just part of the mix.  Steve feels his blood boil with a separate kind of rage, but he swallows it.  He can’t run to HR to file for harassment when he’s in the process of being let go.  And things said in the heat of anger, anyway…

 

Steve takes a grounding breath.  “It’s not like that,” he says.  “You have to realize…it’s so much more than that.”

 

Fury breathes through frustration for a moment.  “We’ll talk.  When we’ve both calmed down.”  He jams his fists into his pockets, further crushing the paper.  “I want you off-site immediately.”  He turns to leave, coming face-to-face with the startled-looking doctor on her way in.  Fury all but shoves her out of the way.  Then he says, half under his breath and half over his shoulder, “Fucking take care of him, Rogers.”

 

“God,” Steve breathes.  He drops his forehead to the back of the hand that still rests on James’s shoulder.

 

“Steve?” James whispers, his voice high and terrified.  

 

“No, it’s fine.  It’s ok,” Steve intones, as much to himself as to James.  

 

“Um.”  The doctor announces her presence.  

 

“Yeah,” Steve sits upright, his forehead throbbing with the pressure of emotion.  “How’re…how’re the results?”

 

“Pretty inconclusive, I’m afraid,” she says.  “But, not unexpected.”  She glances down at  her clipboard.  “No evidence of any pathogens or infections in the blood or CSF.”

 

“That’s good, I guess,” Steve says blankly.

 

“Yes, good for no mono, encephalitis, stuff like that,” the doc explains.  “But…it means we can’t diagnose or treat anything.”  She looks James over intently, and Steve does too.  He’s shifting in his curled position, blinking, moving his head.  

 

“Looks like you’re doing a little better?” the doc asks.  James gives a tiny nod.  

 

“Seizures can make you feel weird for a while.  Hours, even days.”  She turns to Steve.  “I don’t know what else to tell you.  He has a TBI.  It’ll take a while for the brain to heal.  Or it might…this could be the new normal.  I don’t have a bed for him here.  So, take him home.  Watch him.  Come back if it happens again.”  She gives a grim smile, clearly no more thrilled with the healthcare system than the next person.  “He’s already got an appointment for imaging at the end of next week, just for routine care, so…We’ll go from there.”

 

Steve sighs.  “Yeah.  Yeah ok.”

 

“So, I hope I _don’t_ hear from you…” the doc says, gathering her papers and slipping past the curtain.  “You’re free to go whenever you’re ready.”

 

“Alright.”  Steve lets out his breath in a long stream that ruffles James’s hair.  He hadn’t realized he’d been leaning in so close.  “Ok.  You, um, you ready to go home?”

 

“Home?” James croaks, his eyes drifting toward unfocused.  

 

“Yeah,” Steve says, making the decision.  “You’re coming home with me.  Just so someone can be with you till you’re feeling better.”

 

“Don’t feel good,” James grumbles, as if Steve has reminded him.

 

“Yeah.  You…you’ve had a tough day.”  He flexes his fingers and finally slips them away from James’s hand.  “Do you think you can sit up?”

 

He can, with Steve’s support.  Once he’s fully seated, though, his face goes ashen.

 

“You ok?” Steve checks in, knowing full well that James isn’t, but it’s the only way he can think of to phrase the question.  

 

James nods, but the movement throws him off balance.  He braces himself with a hand against the mattress  and swallows thickly, then mumbles something that sounds like, “Change clothes…”

 

With a pang of guilt and humiliation, he realizes James has been sitting in the same wet sweatpants for going on two hours.  “God, I’m really sorry,” Steve says.  “Let me find something…”

 

There are scrubs folded on the bottom shelf of a rolling cart in the corner, and Steve grabs a pair of pants that look like they’ll fit.  “Is it ok if I help you?” He asks.

 

James moves his jaw around for a second, then nods again.  

 

“Ok.”  Steve manually swings James’s legs over the edge of the bed and aids him in stripping.  He does his best not to look or touch anything, but James is so preoccupied with not tipping over that Steve has to do all the work.  It’s definitely a little too close for comfort.  James has barely remembered his name; Steve can’t afford to have his mind anywhere but on getting him feeling better.  In a solidly medical sense.

 

Once the scrubs’ drawstring is tied and James’s shoes are back on, Steve guides him to his feet.  “We’ll have to walk out of here and across the parking lot,” Steve explains.  “Think you can do that?”

 

“Hm,” James says with a hitch in his throat.  “Yeah.”  

 

Steve slouches the slightest bit so he can hold one arm solidly around James’s chest.  “See?  You’re gonna be ok,” Steve says as they pass through the automatic doors and exit the building.  He could be walking away from his job.  From his whole life.  But he can’t spare a thought for it.  There’s so much that’s more important.


	20. 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James’s best may not be enough.

**20.0 JAMES, Saturday 26 March 2005, 0948 hours.  Chateau Ridge Apartments.**

 

Steve’s curled in bed with his back to James, clutching the blankets up to his bare chest.  James massages his exposed shoulder, hoping to release some of the tension obvious in his body.

 

“Buck, just…don’t, ok?” Steve mutters.  

 

James withdraws his touch.  “Yeah, ok.”  He settles for flopping onto his side, spooning Steve’s back from a good six inches away.  

 

He knows Steve’s sick to his stomach and angry besides.  James had seen the bloody underwear wadded up in the bathroom trash with some Kotex wrappers, and his heart had dropped for Steve.

 

“You’ve only had a couple shots so far,” James had tried to soothe.  “It’ll take a little bit on hormones before it goes away, right?  That’s what the doc said?”

 

Steve had just grunted and buried his face in the pillow.

 

So James had made tea, which now sits  cold on the bedside table.  He’d hoped to hug Steve back into feeling loved, but Steve remains closed off and upset.

 

He can’t stand lying there feeling useless, so James starts again.  “I know you hate it.  But, it’s ok, you know?”

 

“No it’s not,” Steve whispers, hostility lacing his voice.

 

“It’s ok with me,” he says.  “You’re still you when stuff like this happens.  You’re still Stevie.”

 

“And who the fuck is that?”  Steve rolls onto his back, holding the quilt over him, and gives James a sideways glare.

 

“My guy.  My damn boyfriend.”  He reaches for Steve’s hand, dislodging the blanket clutched in it.  “And you don’t have to do that.  You don’t have tits anyway.”

 

“Oh, fuck you,” Steve says.  “I have milk glands.  And I hate them.”  He sighs.  “Can’t fucking wait to have money for surgery…”

 

James should know better by now.  He shouldn’t stir the pot, not when Steve feels bad in every way.  But it hurts him to see the love of his life so down.  Maybe as much as it hurts Steve to feel that way.

 

“God, I…wish you didn’t have to.  You’re gonna be in so much pain.”

 

“I’m in pain now,” Steve shoots back.  “My stomach hurts.  My chest hurts.  Not having a fucking dick hurts.”

 

“I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t,” James backtracks.

 

“What did you mean, then?”  Steve swallows hard against anger or nausea or something else equally unpleasant.

 

“I don’t know…  Just, do what you need.”

 

“I am, Buck.”

 

“But…don’t feel like you need to do anything.  Like, for anyone else’s sake,” James tries to explain.  “I’ll love you forever no matter what you look like.  You’re already you.”

 

“You like what I look like now?”

 

He’s backed into a corner.  “God, Stevie, I didn’t say that,” James huffs, sitting up so the blankets fluff down from his shoulders.  He’s stupid for bringing it up.  He truly knows better than to argue at the best of times, let alone when weird hormone shit is going on… And as Steve’s doses of testosterone continue to increase, he assumes it’s only going to get worse before his body catches up and evens things out.

 

“Kinda sounds like you did,” Steve mumbles, turning fully face down.

 

“I’m gonna heat this up,” James mutters, standing up and grabbing the mug from the bedside table with enough force to spill a little over the rim.  “You should drink it while it’s hot.  It’ll make your stomach feel better.”


	21. 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James requires assistance.
> 
> Art by @gershel-draws (tumblr)

**21.0 JAMES, Tuesday 17 February 2015, 1452 hours.  Lighthouse Landing Apartments.**

 

 

James is shaking head to toe when Steve pulls him over the threshold and into his apartment.  It’s a lot bigger than James’s place.  And the furniture matches, which makes it seem much more sophisticated than the mixed-up quality of the loaner set in his studio.  

 

Beyond that, James doesn’t notice a lot.  His vision keeps tunneling, then cycling back out, and he’s afraid he’s going to fall over each time it happens.  Steve seems to realize this, and he helps James to the couch.  

 

Steve.  His Steve.  From years ago, from college.  Is here, with him, taking care of him.  But…he can’t be.  He lost his Steve.  This is a dream, a hallucination, some figment of his headache materializing before his gritty eyes.

 

“Alright.  How’re you feeling?” Steve asks.

 

It’s his therapist voice.  And also the one he’s used with James since they were nineteen and playing at love.  It’s just deeper now.  But still soft.

 

“I…I don’t…” James doesn’t know what he’s saying.  He doesn’t know what to say.  He feels like he’s drowning in quicksand; his body is heavy and shaky and lethargic.  His back aches like it’s been torn open, and his head is about to explode.  

 

“Hey, it’s alright,” Steve says.  He sits beside James.  Teardrops fall onto James’s knees, making small round dark patches on the pastel cotton of his pants.  Odd.  He doesn’t feel like he’s crying…  “Buck, it’s gonna be ok.”

 

Buck.  Bucky.  That’s his name.  Or Steve’s name for him.  It feels warm when Steve says it.  Like a shaft of sunlight on the dusty library of his forgotten memories.  But then it’s too warm.  The throbs emanating from his skull threaten to hijack his heartbeat, and vertigo slams into his forehead with the force of a runaway semi.  He wraps his arm around his stomach, hoping it’ll help keep its minimal contents in place.  James feels himself tipping forward, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s doubled over Steve’s lap trembling in time with his rising sobs.

 

Steve’s hand cups the back of James’s head, then shifts down his neck and to his shoulder blades.  The pressure feels like a warm blanket against the blizzard of painful emotion.  Steve murmurs something comforting, but the words are lost on the way to James’s clogged ears.  His own heartbeat echoes like a stone skipping across water.  

 

Heaviness sits in James’s chest, churning through his ribcage and right down into Steve’s quads beneath him.  Some of it’s tears.  Some is rising bile.  And some is gusts of hurricane-force air that refuses to be breathed, only gasped.  

 

“Ok,” Steve murmurs as James chokes a sob into his knee.  “It’s gonna be ok.”  There’s an edge to Steve’s words, a weight, a crackling fear.  He sounds authoritative and certain, but also afraid.  He runs his fingers down James’s back, careful to stay north of the screaming wound from the spinal tap.

 

James wants to believe him.  But the fiery pain jutting between his teeth almost makes James wish for death again.   Endless void would be such an improvement to this.  But then Steve wouldn’t be with him.  And for reasons James doesn’t quite understand, that would be infinitely worse.  

 

Time doesn’t exist.  There’s only agony.  The burning in his lower back is eating away wicks of skin and muscle down to his hips, around to his obliques, and up under Steve’s hands toward his shoulders.  James’s joints feel loose and sore, and his head pounds stronger  with each heartbeat.  Nausea roils uncontrollably.  He barely has time to swallow before the next wave of burning sourness crawls up his throat.  

 

Eventually he can’t fight it any more.  James gags, dragging his hand up, but it’s trembling too hard to stay put over his mouth.  Luckily the initial heave is dry, and Steve is coherent and ready to spring to action.

 

“Ok, come’ere,” Steve murmurs.  He somehow drags James to his feet and down the hall, which erupts in a burst of shiny lights and colors before his glazed eyes.  Every step ignites the feeling of free fall under James’s feet, and he’s convinced his tender head is going to hit the floor.  

 

The bathroom is a neon blur, and James can’t stop the rush of bilious fluid that pours from his lips before Steve can get the toilet seat up.  

 

“It’s ok,” Steve says.  He throws a towel over the clear yellowish drips and carefully pushes James to his knees.  

 

He spits up acid by the mouthful, feeling his throat and his brain dissolving under the burning pressure.  The convulsive retches won’t stop, and James drops tears into the toilet bowl.  Blackness shimmers around the edges of his vision, and he’s falling forward until the world does a 360 and he’s back where he started, vomiting hard against the vertigo.

 

“Breathe,” Steve whispers.  

 

Why isn’t James breathing?  He tries and almost chokes on the quivering mucous stuck in his throat.

 

“Slow,” Steve says quietly.  He presses the tips of his fingers into James’s shoulder and draws them in a circle.

 

James tries again, moving air into his lungs at a snail’s pace, then micro-coughing it back out.  He has to pause and gulp against a stab of nausea.  Every muscle in James’s body, even those in his throat, feel shaky and on the verge of collapse.  

 

Steve’s sturdy arm keeps James from falling, but his body slackens disgustingly, making him a ragdoll of weakness.  Spasms keep rising from his core, bursting out in small surges that could be hiccups or just more tearless sobs.  

 

“Ok,” Steve murmurs.  James feels Steve’s cheek on the top of his head, sending the vibrations of his voice down through his skull.  The sensation is oddly soothing.  “Ok.”  

 

Time might be passing, or perhaps James is stuck in place, feeling his abdominals quiver sickeningly as his head throbs at half-time.  “Alright,” Steve sighs.  “Do you want a drink of water?”  

 

James doesn’t think he can stomach his own saliva at the moment, let alone actual fluids.  He gives as negative an exhale as he can manage.

 

“Or maybe just lie down?”

 

That sounds better, though not great.  If he lies down, the room is going to melt into ice water and rock him back to seasickness.  “Sssssure,” James hisses from between his teeth.  He would lock his jaw and grit them shut if the effort didn’t send hypodermic arrows into his brain.

 

“Ok.  We’ve got to walk, though,” Steve says .  The small bathroom shifts while James stays stationary.  Steve hugs  him around the waist and uses fistfuls of James’s sweaty t-shirt to steer him forward.  

 

The walk across the narrow hall seems to take an eternity at their shuffling pace, and fire lances up James’s spine as the edge of a mattress comes up under his ass.  He grunts, and Steve murmurs apologies as he brushes greasy hair out of James’s face.  

 

“Lie down.”  The soft pressure of Steve’s hands carries James down on his side, and James uselessly wiggles his legs, lacking the strength to pull them up onto the bed.  

 

“Here.”  Steve supports James’s knees and arranges them to complete the recovery position.  “This ok?”

 

“Huh,” James breathes, not trusting himself to nod without tipping into retches again.

 

“What else do you need?”  Steve pets his hand down James’s right arm from shoulder to wrist, his soft palm leaving a trail of warmth as it passes over James’s cold sweat.

 

“Stay,” James whispers.  

 

“Yeah.  Yeah.  Of course.”  He sits on the edge of the bed beside James’s head, lingering the backs of his knuckles over James’s cheek and under the curve of his jaw.  

 

James blinks slowly.  The touch is perfect and wonderful and healing, like the balmy skin against his face somehow absorbs the stinging edge of his headache.  But it’s not enough.  James raises his unsteady head an inch, feeling his neck tremble under the weight.

 

“What can I do?”

 

James can’t begin to articulate his deep need for the comfort that is Steve.  His scent, his warmth, it’s like the aromas of home, a concept James hasn’t known for years .  He does all he can to lift his head, and around the strings of snot crisscrossing the back of his throat, James breathes, “Please?”

 

Steve deftly scoots across the inches separating them, scooping James’s unbalanced head across his lap, his arm sliding under Steve’s thighs.  The movement and the pain and the relief and the cloud of a thousand other nebulous feelings burst the bubble behind James’s sinuses, and he lets out the first of a new round of sobs.  

 

A deep sniff comes from above James’s head, and a couple heated tears rain down on his ear.  And somehow, they’re the most comforting of all.


	22. 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a disagreement of priorities.

**22.0 STEVE, Wednesday 15 June 2005, 1552 hours.  Chateau Ridge Apartments.**

 

James is over an hour late.  He’d texted to tell Steve he’s running behind, but it doesn’t stop Steve from worrying.  Not actually worrying about James; Steve knows full well the man can take care of himself on the streets of Brooklyn.  Just about…other things.

 

The endocrinologist had upped his dose of testosterone last week, and along with the slight increase in facial hair, Steve’s sex drive has become nothing short of annoying.  He wants to hump the fucking copy machine in the student union building because it’s warm and makes little moaning sounds.  Now that he’s at home and in private, he hopes Bucky will come back soon  soon and be interested in some late-afternoon delight so he doesn’t have to resort to another unsatisfactory round of touching himself.

 

The sound of the front door opening gives him a boner, and he eagerly puts aside the lap desk and drawing he’s been working on.  

 

“Hey,” he greets as soon as James is through the door.

 

“Hey, Stevie,” James replies.  He seems different.  Maybe a little farther away than usual.  There’s a folder and few loose papers tucked under his arm.  

 

“What’s up?”  Steve asks, gesturing for James to come close so he can hug his thighs without standing up.  

 

“Hm,” James replies, petting Steve’s bangs down his forehead.  “A lot.”  He moves Steve’s art supplies to the opposite end of the sofa and sinks into the cushions at Steve’s side.  

 

“You wanna…forget your troubles for a while?” Steve suggests hopefully.

 

James gives a soft chuckle, well aware of Steve’s recent…problem.  “Yeah, in a minute, ok?  I just…gotta tell you something first.”

 

“Ok,” Steve replies, looking at him expectantly.

 

“Ok.”  James takes a deep breath, like he’s steeling himself up.  He puts his hand on Steve’s knee, which is probably meant to be an indicator of seriousness, but it’s maddening.  “I, uh,” he starts.  “I enlisted.”

 

“Huh?”  Steve heard him just fine.  It’s not even that much of an unexpected development.  They’ve talked about it as a possibility for the future, given their meager finances and Steve’s mounting medical costs.  T costs more than routine asthma medication, and the out-of-pocket price of surgery is keeping it out on the horizon.

 

Still, though, this option had seemed far off.  Something to tackle post-graduation.  But now it’s staring Steve in the face.  

 

James looks down, a little ashamed .  “I went down to the recruitment center.  By Fort Hamilton.”  He drops the papers across his lap, revealing Army logos and lots of typed pages.

 

“So you’re…wow.”  Steve can barely form words.

 

“I’ll go to basic in a month or so,” James continues.  “Then…see what happens from there.”

 

“But,” Steve interjects, his voice cracking, “You’re not done with school yet.  I thought…after graduation…”

 

“I’m not getting anywhere in college,” James admits.  “I’m paying good money to fail right now.  This…this is gonna be better.”  He claps his hand on  Steve’s shoulder.  “I know you’re hurting every day.  I got a signing bonus coming, a few thousand dollars.  It’ll set you up for surgery.”

 

“God, Buck…”  The proposition is amazing, beyond the stretches of regular generosity.  He’d give anything for surgery.  Well, almost anything.  

 

“You’re…you’re gonna get deployed, though,” Steve worries.  The thought of James in a generic uniform, walking in sand and avoiding trip wires intrudes among his mental images.  “They’re gonna make you leave…”

 

“I’ll probably be stationed here first,” James placates.  “But nothing’s set in stone.  Going overseas is…a possibility.”

 

“You can’t…” Steve whispers.

 

“It’s for the best.”  James re-shuffles his papers, looking at the floor.  “I…can’t stand seeing you so down all the time.  I just want you to feel better.  Maybe I go away for a while, but then at least there’s money coming in.  So you can get what you need.”

 

“You’re what I need, though,” Steve murmurs, tears starting to prickle at the corners of his eyes.  He stands up and takes a step back.  He gazes into James’s hurt expression as a trickle of warm saltwater streaks down his cheek.  

 

Steve turns and heads into the bedroom.  Alone.

 

After an hour, he can’t stand it anymore.  He stomps back into the living room where James is still slumped on the couch.  Steve doesn’t say anything at first; he just glares.  He feels tall and unusually powerful standing over him.  

 

“I don’t…” Steve starts, his voice raspy from tears.  “This is not what I want.”

 

“Do you think it’s what I want?” James shoots back.

 

“I mean.  You went and did it behind my back!”

 

“If I’d talked to you about it first, you would’ve said—”

 

“I would’ve said no,” Steve cuts him off sharply.  “‘Cause this is...this is stupid.”

 

“It’s gonna help.”  James’s tone firms.  “We—you—need the money.  And some space from me probably wouldn’t hurt.”  He drops his eyes from Steve’s.

 

“In case you didn’t realize,” Steve starts, anger rising up again.  “I don’t have anybody but you.  My mom’s dead.  I don’t have any friends.  This is suicide for both of us!”  Through his yelling, his voice breaks.  “I hope you know that.”

 

“No, I… it’s not,” James says, growing quieter as Steve gets louder.  “It doesn’t have to be.  I might not get deployed.  I’ll write you every day.”

 

“I don’t want you to!  Abandoning me is not going to help!”

 

There’s a heavy pause.  Tears well in James’s eyes, and a lone drop streaks down his cheek.  Then he whispers,  “Yeah.  Ok.”

 

They don’t speak for the rest of the evening, but as soon as they’re in bed, Steve’s spread out over James’s chest, pressing desperate kisses into his jaw.  The usual sweet murmurings are absent.  As good as the physical sensation is, everything feels impersonal.  James moves his arms up around Steve’s shoulders, and one hand comes to pet the back of his head and embed in his hair.    Steve melts into the embrace.  

 

“God, Stevie, I’m sorry.”  

 

James’s temple rubs against Steve’s cheek, allowing their tear tracks to meld together into a river of shared sadness.  Steve lets out a breath that becomes a sob.  He wants to say _I know,_ or _me too,_ but he can’t force out anything.  He settles for just holding Bucky closer.

  
  



	23. 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a reunion.

**23.0 STEVE, Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 2003 hours.  Lighthouse Landing Apartments.**

 

Steve wakes to the twinkle of the street light outside the bedroom window.  He pushes himself up on his forearms and glances at the alarm clock on the bedside table.  It’s a little after 8, and he needs a moment to make sense of why it’s dark outside.  As he realizes it’s evening, Steve comes to terms with why he’s curled with his low back against the headboard and his crown pointed toward the foot of the bed.  And with the other figure trembling against his chest.

 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve whispers, carding his fingers through the dark hair.  

 

James stirs.  Steve’s facing his back, so he doesn’t know  if the glassy brown eyes open or not.  But even in the darkness, he can see the smear of burgundy blood on the back of James’s t-shirt, marking where his spine’s been stuck.  

 

“How’re you feeling?” Steve asks, sitting all the way up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.  

 

“Hm,” James exhales.  Steve can hear the guttural squeezing in his throat as James swallows.  “Sick,” he sighs.

 

“Your stomach?” Steve asks, fearing the worst.

 

“Head.  Everything,” James whispers.  He swallows again, then lets loose with a retching gag and a murmur of, “Sorry.”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve says, hastening to lift James’s torso over the side of the mattress in case anything comes up, which it doesn’t.  His cheeks tinge pink with dry heat.  “You’re really dehydrated.”

 

James is beyond dehydrated.  He hasn’t had anything to eat or drink since this morning, he’s thrown up more times than Steve cares to count, and he has an imbalance of cerebrospinal fluid on top of it all.  “I know you’re feeling like shit, but we need to get some fluids in you,” he says, patting James on the back through a series of wet coughs.  

 

“Ugh.  Fuck,” James chokes.

 

“Yeah.”  

 

The better part of an hour elapses before Steve can coax James into sitting up against the headboard and accepting a paper cup of water from the bathroom faucet.  He’s too shaky to hold the cup to his lips, so Steve does it for him, ignoring James’s weak protests and apologies.

 

Five minutes later the water comes back up and they relocate to the bathroom floor.  James trembles against the cold porcelain of the toilet while Steve tries to soothe him however he can.  It takes a few tries before the water stays down, and it’s nearly midnight when James finally pushes back to lean against the bathtub.  

 

His face is ghostly, but at least clammy sweat is beading on James’s forehead again.  “Hey,” Steve says, reaching over from his seat a few feet away and softly squeezing James’s knee.  “It’s good to see you, Buck.”  

 

It’s a joke and the truth all at once.  Steve is so relieved James has finally surfaced from the throes of sickness, seeming confident he’ll be able to hold down water long enough for his body to get back in order.  And James is relaxed, more so than Steve had ever seen in therapy.  It makes his heart ache to move slowly because that has to mean he’s remembering.  It has to mean he’s back.

 

“Hey,” James replies weakly.  He scrubs his hand over his mouth and wipes it sloppily on the leg his scrubs .  He swallows.  Takes a moment to breathe.  Then, “I…You…call me Bucky…” It’s somewhere between a statement and a question, all uttered in the softest whisper.

 

“Yeah,” Steve replies.  He shifts his fingers over the shape of James’s kneecap.  “Is…is that ok?”

 

“Mmm,” James sighs.  “Yeah.”  He lowers his gaze to the floor as if deep in thought.  “You’re…you’re Stevie.”

 

“Yeah,” Steve breathes, holding as still as he can so as not to upset the atmosphere.  If this is a dream, he doesn’t want to wake up.  But he has to know what’s there, what James recollects.  “Do you…do you remember me?” Steve inhales deeply to keep his voice from shaking.

 

James draws his tongue across his lower lip.  “I…” he starts.  “I…not…not everything.”  James pauses.  “But…But Stevie, god, I missed you.”

 

Steve forces  himself to be delicate so he doesn’t startle James or inflict more pain on his crumpled body, but all  he wants to do is wrap James in his arms and never let go.  He initiates the hug, and James leans in easily, mumbling something else into Steve’s collar, but it’s lost in the emotion of the reunion.  

 

Steve presses a kiss to James’s temple, then reminds himself again to slow down.  He doesn’t know what James wants.  What James remembers of their life together.   _He might not want you_ , Steve thinks.  It would be a hard let-down.  But it would be fine.  Better than fine, because James is back, he knows him, fuck, he _missed_ him…

 

James is spilling shaky tears into Steve’s collarbones.  “You ok?” Steve pulls away a few inches and checks in.

 

James gulps air for a second.  A wrinkle of thought appears between his eyes as he arranges the words he wants to use.  “Yeah… I, uh, I’m confused.  I…still feel sick.  But…better?”

 

“Yeah,” Steve says, using his wrist to dab at the corners of his own eyes.  “Yeah, I get it.  You, uh, you might be hungry, and that’s what’s…making you nauseous…”  He trails off as he gazes into James’s face.  He’s too pale, too haggard, but he’s the boy Steve remembers.  Now grown into a man, and back in Steve’s life.  He prays it’s for good.

 

In the kitchen, Steve sets James up with a bottle of Gatorade first, then he puts a saucepan on the stove and starts a batch of white rice.  Simple carbs will do James good, plus it’ll take a while to cook.  Which means more time spent sitting together right now.

 

“Buck,” Steve says, placing a lid on the saucepan and lighting the gas stove.  “You, uh, you know I can’t be your therapist anymore.”  Best to get this out of the way first.

 

“Oh,” James says, crinkling the label on his bottle.  There’s no expression on his face.  “I…don’t get to see you?”

 

“No, no,” Steve backtracks.  “You can see me as much as you want.  That’s, um, that’s why.  I can’t be your therapist if we know each other, you know, outside the VA.”

 

“Huh.”

 

“I still, I want to help you,” Steve says.  “Not just right now, but with everything.  You can stay here, if you want.”   _Great, Rogers, invite him to move in before you even know if he likes you…_

 

“Huh,” James says again.  Steve turns away from the stove and takes a seat across from James at the kitchen table.  “I, I think that’s good.”

 

Steve smiles, his heart rising in controlled elation.  “Yeah.  It’ll be good.”  He lets James’s words continue to sink in before he speaks again.  “You don’t have to, but, if you want to talk about anything.  Your memories, anything at all.”  Steve extends his hand.  “You can.”

 

James presses his fingertips into Steve’s palm.  “Ok,” he says.

 

Pleasant silence ensues, save for the bubbling of the rice on the stove.  When it’s finished, Steve serves up two steaming bowls and tops the grains with pats of butter. The situation is oddly similar to their first meeting since James came back stateside, and it seems like a lot has happened since then.  He doesn’t expect James to speak much more, seeing as it’s one in the morning and he’s hungry and still sick.  

 

But as their fingers overlap again as Steve hands over a fork, James lifts his eyes to Steve’s.  He opens his mouth and stays silent for a second, then whispers, “I wrote you letters.  Didn’t I?”

 

Steve takes a steadying breath.  “Yeah,” he murmurs back.  “Yeah, you did.”


	24. 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James attempts to assuage his guilt.

**24.0 JAMES, Monday 03 October 2005, 1608 hours.  Fort Hamilton Army Barracks.**

 

He’s been away for over a month.  Now that the debacle of basic training is over, he’s allowed to write letters and make phone calls.  He could probably see Steve on weekends if he wanted to, but getting in touch has been…challenging.  

 

The other recruits he’s been spending time around aren’t bad guys.  They’re typical. Making jokes about broads and blondes and how many babies are getting made when their inevitable deployments are finished.  He’s been discreet with his phone calls, which doesn’t turn out be entirely necessary since Steve’s never once picked up.  

 

On his way from the mess hall back to his room, James stops by the tiny post office building.  He gives a half-hearted wave to the guy behind the counter and starts cranking out the combination to his box.  He’s doesn’t expect to receive anything from Steve this way, since the phone calls don’t seem to be working.  He’s still hopeful, though.

 

The only envelope in the small metal cubby is from the U.S. Army.  James rips it open to see his paycheck.  He shakes his head for a second at the inefficiency of it—it was probably mailed on Friday and spent the past 48-odd hours whizzing along conveyor belts to end up right back where it started.  But, there’s the U.S. government for you.

 

James looks down at the small printed numbers and nearly doesn’t believe it when he sees a total of over five grand.  But, with the signing bonus and without the deductions for health insurance, it seems accurate.  He makes an appreciative sound, then digs into his pocket for his wallet, steps to the counter, and buys all the stationery supplies he can get his hands on.  

 

As he walks back to his room, James thinks through what he’s going to say.   _Dear Stevie_ , he’ll start.

_I miss you so fucking much._

 

Maybe it’s too sappy.  

 

_I miss fucking you so much._

 

It’s not any better.  

 

_Dear Stevie, It’s only been a month and I’m already sick of pretending to be straight around all these gay-hating assholes._

 

God, everything sounds terrible.

 

_Dear Stevie, I found out I’m getting shipped off to Afghanistan next month, and all your worst fears came true.  I have to fly in some shaky transport plane over the Atlantic Ocean and all of Europe to go face off against some terrorists.  I’m scared out of my mind, and it’s even worse because I can’t get ahold of you to tell you._

 

When he sits down at the tiny desk, James sticks the paycheck into the envelope first.  He scribbles Steve’s address on the front, hoping he still lives in their shared one-bedroom and hasn’t moved on without telling him.  Then he poises his pen above a note card and goes through his thoughts again.  What does he want to say?

 

Nothing’s quite right; not even verbal words can convey the pining and frustration and fear and deep, deep love swirling from his brain down to his stomach and back up again.  

 

_Dear Stevie_ , he thinks.  But…what if Steve hates him now?  What if those aren’t the words he wants to hear?

 

James sighs.  He starts scratching his pen across the card.   _Hopefully this helps.  Love, Bucky_.

 

He throws it into the envelope, seals it, and adds a stamp.  Then he holds it against his chest for a moment, wishing he could do more to bridge the ever-widening gap between them.


	25. 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which lost things are found.

**25.0 JAMES, Wednesday 25 February 2015, 1009 hours.  West DC Veterans Hospital.**

 

It takes the better part of a week for James to get his body back in order.  He could barely hold down food and water for the first couple days, and the headache and mental fogginess hung on much longer.  He still isn’t feeling fantastic, but a week’s worth of therapy is enough to miss, and eventually James has to go back.  

 

The routine is different now.  James ponders the recent changes as he sits on a bench in the VA’s atrium, waiting for Steve to come get him.  That’s the biggest thing— someone driving him.  Feeding him, too.  He hasn’t seen Darcy in eight days, and James wonders if she cares.

 

A lot is remarkably unchanged, though.  James hadn’t been feeling particularly anxious about it, but he’d been relieved when Nat hadn’t mentioned his absence in OT.  It was obvious she knew he’d been sick and that he’d lost strength, but she hadn’t asked about it.  She hadn’t asked about Steve either, but James had known she knew.

 

The VA’s automatic glass doors slide open, and James turns his head.  Steve strides toward him, looking casually like an old-time movie star in jeans and a leather jacket.  He isn’t technically supposed to be on the premises, since he’s in trouble with his boss and all.  But he’d promised he’d come pick James up after therapy, and that’s what he’s doing.

 

“Hey,” he says as he approaches.  James immediately stands up.  “Ready?”

 

James follows him out to the car.  

 

“Everything go ok?” Steve checks in.

 

“Hm.  Yeah,” James affirms.  He’s not sure if Steve’s asking specifically about the therapy session, or if there’s more to it, like an inquiry about possible gossip making the rounds.  James goes with the former, mostly because he doesn’t have any intel on the latter.  “Kinda…behind.”  He doesn’t go into the details of how he’d struggled to play hangman.  Even holding the fat whiteboard marker without dropping it from his shaky hand had been a challenge.

 

“Setbacks happen,” Steve says as he backs out of his parking space.  “And everyone’s weakened a little after they’re sick.”

 

“Yeah,” James sighs.  He looks out the window.  They’re not headed in the exact reverse of the route they took to get to the hospital earlier.  “Where’re we going?” James asks.

 

“I, uh, thought we should stop at your apartment,” Steve says.  “I mean, it’s completely fine if you want to keep wearing my clothes and stuff, but I thought, maybe, you’d like some of your things around?”

 

It’s a smart idea, since as it stands now, James’s readily accessible possessions total about three items.  Nevertheless , he doesn’t have a lot, and collecting what he has won’t be abundantly helpful.  His coat, for example, got lost the day he was in the ER.  He’ll have to keep wearing Steve’s windbreaker anyway.  “Don’t…have that much,” he says.

 

“That’s ok,” Steve replies, turning down the street for James’s apartment complex.  “Just, anything that’s gonna make you more comfortable.  Your clothes, your blankets, anything.”

 

Steve’s bedding is a thousand times softer than the cheap sheets in his apartment.  For the thousandth time this week, James feels bad about displacing Steve from his own bedroom.  Steve always insists the pull-out sofa is fine for him, but it doesn’t stop the guilt trip.

 

“You’ll see in a second,” James says as Steve parks the car.  “There’s just…not a lot.”

 

James unlocks his door, feeling odd that he hasn’t been inside in over a week.  With bases and camps and hospital rooms all being temporary lodging, he has a hard time believing the little apartment still counts as his even though he’s been away.  It doesn’t feel like home anymore.  Not that it did much to begin with.

 

“Wow.  You keep things pretty neat in here,” Steve says as he steps in behind James.  

 

It’s not really the case, but there are so few things in the apartment that it feels tidy by default.  Small signs of life are everywhere, though, like the sloppily made bed in the corner and the stack of file folders on the kitchen table.

 

James scoops those up first.  “VA paperwork,” he explains.  

 

“Yeah, good,” Steve says.  “That’s important.”

 

The only other things James can think of to take are his clothes , so he crosses to the closet and pushes open the folding doors.  It’s a little less well-ordered in there, as James has physical difficulty with the norms of closet organization.  His few button-downs are draped over hangers and hung on the bar, and his pants are in a somewhat-folded pile on the floor.  A clear plastic dresser holds his t-shirts and underwear and socks, all of which are thrown in place and wrinkled.

 

His suitcase is on the top shelf above all the clothes, and James reaches up for it.  Steve intervenes before James can nudge it out of its place, gently carrying it to the ground.  

 

“I can start loading up your clothes,” Steve offers.  “Do you need anything from the bathroom?  Your toothbrush or anything?”  

 

Yes. He’d forgotten the existence of his toiletries, probably because what he’s been using at Steve’s is fairly identical to what he’s used to.  Except for the toothpaste Steve has been generously dispensing for him.  James goes in to grab his razor and bar of soap and toothpaste pellets.  He throws them into an empty shoebox he finds under the sink and heads to shove the collection into his luggage.

 

Back in the main room, Steve’s bent over the open suitcase, staring into its empty cavity.  He looks perplexed.

 

“What?” James asks, setting his box down on the floor and coming over to look.  

 

There’s some paper tucked into the corner of the outdated case.  It’s halfway consumed by the loose fabric lining, but James can see it’s old and dirty-looking.  Splotches of light brown water damage tarnish the white of what seems to be an envelope.  Smeared black lettering spells out an address for James at Fort Hamilton.  Brooklyn.  That’s…where he’d enlisted.  

 

James has a sudden impression of opening his box in the tiny Army post office.  Pulling out the floppy letter with a sense of anticipation that had quickly turned to dread.

 

“That’s…” James whispers, not quite sure what he’s going to say.  He reaches for the stiff, crumpled paper.  

 

The flap has been long since unsealed, so James wiggles the contents out easily.  Inside is another envelope.  This one addressed to Steve.  

 

James flips it over.  The letter was once sealed with scotch tape, but either time or water or an eager finger has unstuck it.  He worms  his hand into the paper pocket, and beside him, Steve whispers, “Oh, god.”

 

Inside is an Army paycheck, uncashed.  An index card accompanies it, a short note scribbled in James’s handwriting.  

 

Underneath the words, a second hand has written, in red, _I can’t.  I’m sorry_.  There’s no signature, but James knows who wrote it.

 

“God, Buck, I…I can’t believe you still have…”

 

James nods.  He still has it.  He’s known he had it since the first doctors in Kandahar handed over everything worth salvaging out of his tattered uniform when he’d arrived  at the hospital.  But, like everything about Steve, it’s hovered out of sight, slipping out of his memory bank even though it’s been sitting in his suitcase all this time.

 

“Yeah, I…I’ve had it.  Here.  And in the hospital.  And in Afghanistan.”  He’s hit with a sudden recollection.  “Used to…hold it in my boot.  Or…or in my sock.”

 

“I’m…I’m so sorry I did that,” Steve murmurs.  “I shouldn’t’ve sent… I should’ve written back.”

 

“I wrote…” James whispers, seeing his calloused hands folding paper, tossing envelopes into mail slots, exchanging cash for more postage…

 

“And I still have every letter,” Steve says.  “I just…it was too hard.  I thought I was doing the right thing.  I…loved you too much.”  He takes a deep breath.  “I still do.”

 

The dizziness of emotion rises to James’s head, and he leans an inch to his right so his shoulder presses into Steve’s.  “I know.”


	26. 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve feels terrible.

**26.0 STEVE, Thursday, 29 November 2007, 1422 hours.  Chateau Ridge Apartments.**

 

It’s the worst time of the year for Steve.  It’s been two years since his mother’s funeral, and the pain still hits hard.  With Thanksgiving over and Christmas approaching, it’s easy for Steve to wither in the shadows of the empty apartment.  He hasn’t been to work in a week.  But that’s one good thing about working the front desk of a psychiatrist’s office.  No shortage of mental health days.  

 

He really is sick today, though, treating his runny nose with shots of Fireball until it comes rushing back up mixed with snot.  He sits crumpled on the bathroom floor, not knowing what to do with his newly too-long legs.  

 

In the 18 months he’s been on testosterone, Steve has grown nearly ten inches.  It’s fantastic, more than he’d ever imagined.  Plus exciting and affirming that he’d had a boyish young adult growth spurt.  He’s still weedy, though, like his metabolism is preoccupied with stretching his skeleton and refusing to put weight on him despite hours in the gym.  

 

It gives him the alcohol tolerance of a little girl, and Steve curses every deity he can think of as he spits spicy liquor into the toilet bowl.  He rests his feverish forehead on the plastic seat, wishing he could get ahold of his life.  

 

He misses his mom.  He can’t fathom why; they didn’t get along at all in the end.  She hadn’t understood him, ever really.  Maybe she’d hated him.  He hadn’t spoken to her enough to find out.  

 

But he’s nostalgic.  He remembers post-Thanksgiving shopping trips and other moments of mother-daughter time when they’d stroll around as matching petite, ponytailed blondes, trying on fancy clothes they would never afford or have a reason to wear.  Those times had never been exactly fun, but at least they were times he felt loved.  

 

He _is_ loved, Steve tries to remind himself.  There’s a letter from Bucky in the pile of unopened mail out on the kitchen counter.  Steve had seen it immediately, recognized the scribbled handwriting, and pushed it far down into the mass of sales ads and bills.  It’s the 27th letter James has sent.  Steve has 25 of them neatly tucked into a paper bag beneath his bed, and the one he’s just received will soon join them, stowed away unopened.  He’d thought sending the first one back would keep James from putting out the effort.  But he’d been wrong.  

 

Nausea churns in Steve’s gut, and also in his forehead, swirling his thoughts into a sickening frenzy.  He should write James back.  Even a quick note would suffice.  A simple _I miss you_.  Or _Stop talking to me_.   _It’s cloudy_.   _I’m depressed_.

 

He retches again.  He wishes he could hate James.  Like he wishes he could just up and hate his mom.  But unlike Sarah, James had never done anything.  His mistakes were simply mistakes, and in hindsight it seems clear in a way Steve was never able to see in heated moments.  But as he’s learning more and more, he’s just grasping at straws.  It’s a lot easier to hate somebody else when he really hates himself.  

 

Steve gets shakily to his feet and rinses out his mouth.  He presses his face into the cool hand towel and inhales its stale, soapy scent.  This is stupid.  He can’t keep sitting in the dark, waiting to feel better.  He runs through the trove of short quips and pieces of advice he’s gathered in his advanced psych classes and around the clinic.   _It’s ok to feel bad; it’s just not ok to stay that way…_

 

He needs to pick up the pieces.  Now.  He’s not capable of that much since he’ll probably need to vomit a few more times before he’s sober, but Steve clumsily leaves the bathroom and creeps down the hall.  

 

He pours the remaining Fireball down the drain and takes James’s letter into the bedroom.  He hesitates with the envelope in one hand and the paper bag in the other.  Then he shoves the most recent letter in with the rest.  Stuffing his feelings down isn’t helpful.  But wallowing is even worse.   _Self-care is not selfish_.

 

Steve gets himself a glass of water and sits down on the couch with his laptop.  He pulls up his e-mail and starts tapping out a message.  He hasn’t communicated with his plastic surgeon in a while, but they’ve both known the next step would eventually come.  Steve barely remembers the mastectomy; that’s how good and natural he’d felt when it had been over.  

 

He gets as far as filling in the subject line with _Bottom Surgery_ before sour bile rises up again and he has to sprint back to the bathroom.  He can practically see the tablespoon of progress he’s built splashing into the toilet water along with what’s surely his stomach lining.  

 

When he finishes, Steve trudges back to the living room, shuts down his computer without saving the drafted message, and collapses onto the couch.  He hugs a throw pillow to his chest and breathes into it, wishing with all his heart that he could wrap his arms around James.


	27. 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which love reignites.

**27.0 STEVE, Saturday 28 February 2015, 2037 hours.  Lighthouse Landing Apartments.**

 

Steve is washing the dishes after dinner when he suddenly feels James’s body filling the space behind his back.  

 

“You doing ok?” Steve asks.  It doesn’t seem like the right question, though.  James doesn’t have the usual air he carries when he’s uncomfortable or needs assistance.

 

“I…I should help you,” James murmurs over the sound of water cascading down the drain.  

 

“It’s ok,” Steve replies.  “I got it.  I’ll be done soon.”

 

“I…want to help.”  

 

This is different.  “Uh, you could grab the pan off the stove and bring it over here,” Steve suggests.  

 

James’s presence moves away, then quickly back.  He pushes the large crusted frying pan around Steve’s elbow and deposits it in the sink.  It clinks against the stainless steel, and the tone of the splashing water changes.

 

“Thanks,” Steve murmurs, probably not loud enough to hear.  He expects James to move away, maybe go back to the table or meander into the living room for TV.  What he doesn’t expect is James’s warm cheek coming down on his shoulder from behind.  

 

“Oh,” Steve exhales.  “You feeling ok?”  

 

“Mm-hm.”  The affirmation vibrates through Steve’s shirt and skin and down to his very bones.  The gap between their bodies closes.  James’s chest flattens to his back.

 

Steve turns off the water, leaving the pan to soak.  “You sure?” Steve presses.  The closeness brings up feelings and memories, both recent and long forgotten.

 

“Yeah,” James whispers.  “I just…I…”  He shifts and brushes his lips against the stubble on Steve’s jaw.  

 

Steve lifts his damp hands from the sink and reaches around his own hips until he finds James’s fingers resting delicately against him.  This is…  Steve can barely categorize his emotions.  Physical affection left his life when Bucky did.  It’s one of the things he’s missed the most.  He’s anxious for it; he wants it back.  He wants James’s body on his in every way.

 

But it’s terrifying.  Steve’s different now.  He’s happier with himself than he’s ever been, but dysphoria rears its ugly head once in awhile.  And what will James think of him, being a man now in every way but one?

 

_Calm down, he might not want you_.  “Hey,” Steve says, stroking the back of James’s hand.  He turns his head just far enough to see over his shoulder, to be warned that James’s chin is lifting, his lips softly separated.  The second kiss comes to the corner of Steve’s mouth.  

 

Steve turns his body now, positioning one hand on James’s waist and the other in the center of his back.  His heart is hammering because this is perfect; it’s exactly what he wants.  Who cares if it doesn’t go any further than this, because being close to James in this way is enough.  It’s everything.  

 

“Buck,” Steve breathes.  

 

“Yeah.”  James brings in a third kiss, this time holding Steve’s lower lip between his own for a moment.

 

Steve strokes his hand up to James’s cheek.  Blood rushes to his groin as the soft burn of James’s stubble bites into the tips of his fingers.  “Is this…  Is this ok?” he asks, his breath coming in soft gulps just a few inches from James’s face.  “Is this what you want?”

 

“I—I don’t…” James stutters.  “Yeah.  I don’t…if I can do…everything.”  He leans his forehead down into Steve’s neck and presses his lips to his throat.  “But yeah.”  

 

The words hum into Steve, driving him to repeat, “Yeah.”

 

James’s skin slowly peels away from Steve’s as he remembers his chivalry.  “Is it…?  Do you…?”

 

“More than anything,” Steve says, a smile breaking across his face.

 

They move into the bedroom, and James immediately starts wiggling out of his t-shirt.  Steve helps free the stump arm from the confines of the fabric, then lets his hand drop away, unsure if he’s allowed to touch the tender, pitted flesh.  

 

“Does…it hurt?” Steve asks, feeling stupid.  

 

“Yeah,” James admits.  “But, like, achy?  Touch…isn’t bad.”

 

“Ok.  Ok.  Good.”  Steve sinks onto the bed beside James.  He slides his hand from James’s collarbone, over the muscle of his shoulder, and down the curve of his partial bicep.  He rests it there as he slips the other arm around James’s back and knots his fingers in his silky dark hair.  

 

The next kisses are more desperate.  James’s tongue slips delicately between Steve’s lips, and the invitation turns Steve’s mouth hungry.  He swallows up as much of James as he can, running his touch back down the shoulder and across the chest, thumbing gently at his nipple and feeling it tighten beneath his fingertips.

 

James has less freedom of movement, but his hand is busy massaging the small of Steve’s back.  He plays with the waistband of his jeans and ripples his fingers up the hem of his shirt.

 

“Off?” Steve asks, interpreting the touch.

 

James nods, then bites another kiss into Steve’s lips.  

 

“You know I’m, I’m different now,” Steve tries to warn him.  “I don’t have…all of it, but…”

 

“Yeah,” James replies.  He flutters gently up Steve’s back.

 

“Ok, here,” Steve breathes into his mouth.  He slips the garment over his arms, then breaks away for the shortest moment to fling it over his head.  “Ok.”

 

James responds by flattening his palm against Steve’s heart, pushing him into a partial recline against the pillows.  James slumps onto him, exploring Steve’s muscular body with his fingers.  It’s too dark for the pale anchor-shaped scars to show up across his pecs, but James finds them by feel, tracing over the skin.  

 

“Does it…bother you?” Steve murmurs into James’s ear.  The scars, his body, everything about him…

 

“I…should’ve been there,” James whispers back.  “I’m sorry.”

 

“No, don’t,” Steve assures him.  “You don’t have to go back there.  It’s ok.”

 

James’s hand slides down to Steve’s abdominals.  He kisses Steve’s jaw and trails his tongue  down his neck.  It brings them chest to chest.  Steve holds James to him.  “I shouldn’t have left,” James breathes.

 

“You were doing what you needed to do.  It’s not something to worry about now.”

 

James shifts so he’s parallel to Steve, but slightly askew.  The fronts of both this thighs press laterally on either side of Steve’s left leg.  The persistent warmth brings excitement that sends a million star-like prickles up from Steve’s core and down his arms and legs.  

 

He can feel the shape of James’s dick against his hip bone, half-hard.  Steve’s own body is hot and insistent; every movement invites  pleasure through the friction of his clothing.  

 

Steve lets out a shuddering breath, wondering if James feels  the same.  He moves in the smallest grind, rocking James over the expanse of his chest.

 

“Hm,” James hums.  His eyes are closed.  His back arches the smallest bit as he picks up the movement and echoes it back to Steve.  

 

“Yeah,” Steve sighs.  He initiates a new string of kisses and keeps up the rhythm, rocking until he can practically see ecstasy in the glitter hovering around the edges of his vision.  He wants so badly to get a hand on James, or his mouth, or his ass, or whatever James will take.

 

“Ok?” Steve breathes.  He inches his fingers around from James’s back to the space between them where their waistbands clash together.  He rubs the button of James’s jeans with his thumb, then slips his index finger under the band, teasing the skin below his navel.  “Would that…be ok?”

 

“Mm.”  James pulls back from Steve’s mouth.  “Ok.  Yeah.  Ok.”

 

James lifts his hips while Steve does the work.  The action is the same one he performed in the ER a couple weeks ago, but the context is so different.  So much better.  Steve remains careful as he slides James’s jeans down to his knees, but this time he relishes the brush of his wrist against the slight tenting of the front of his boxers.

 

“These too?” Steve asks softly.  He strokes the puckered elastic at the top of the shorts.

 

James hesitates .  “I’m not…”  

 

“It’s ok,” Steve reminds him.  “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

 

“I just, um.”  The specific words don’t come, but James presses a kiss to the side of Steve’s neck and guides his hand to the front of his boxers.

 

“Ok.  That’s good, Buck.”  Steve gently squeezes through the fabric.  The fly gapes open under his hand, and the feel of James’s dick against his skin is almost more than he can take.  Decade-old memories merge with present feelings, and a familiar sense of warmth rockets through Steve’s body.  

 

He adjusts his grip so he can slide his fingers around James’s length.  An intake of breath beside his ear carries James’s reaction to the sensation.  “You good?”

 

James nods.  Steve feels it more than he sees it; the stubbly chin rocks into his shoulder, and James’s forehead graces his cheek.  James’s erection begins to solidify beneath the stimulation of Steve’s hand, and he breathes comforting fog against Steve’s neck.

 

Then moisture clings  to the shadow of beard on Steve’s jaw.  James gasps , and his shoulders quiver into Steve’s chest.

 

Steve pauses all movement and brings both hands up to caress James’s shoulders.  “Buck,” he murmurs.  “What’s wrong?”

 

“I…no,” he mutters through tears.  “It’s just…so good.  So much…all at once…”

 

“It’s ok,” Steve comforts.  He wraps his arm around James’s back and slips his fingers under the curtain of dark hair that covers his neck.  

 

“Sorry,” James whispers.

 

“It’s fine,” Steve replies in the same timbre.  “Nothing wrong with stopping.”

 

“It’s just…a lot.”

 

“Yeah,” Steve sighs.  It is a lot at once, even for him.  But no matter what happens, now or ever, one thing seems to be sure.  “I love you, Buck.”

 

And in the smallest, tear-streaked breath, “I…I love you too.”


	28. 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James gives up.

**28.0 JAMES, Wednesday 06 November 2013, 0014 hours.  Unknown Location, Afghanistan.**

 

The stock of the rifle pokes James in the back as he’s herded into the dusty SUV.  He considers making some kind of snide remark, or even _Ok, I’m going_.  But he can’t even muster the energy to open his lips.  

 

James is tired.  Not just because he’s been shaken awake at some ungodly hour of darkness, but deeply tired.  Past his bones, down into his soul.  

 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been at this.  Days and nights don’t have a lot of meaning anymore when there’s no guarantee of sleep or food or even a roof.  

 

The guy with the rifle throws cuffs around James’s wrists and mumbles something in Pashto.  He makes an ugly face and slams the car’s back door, leaving James to slump against the window.  

 

James knows his captors can’t stand him.  He’s not a big fan of himself right now.  He’s gotten weak.  Filthy.  The upset stomach he’s had on and off since his first tour has been back with a vengeance, and at some point he’d shit himself.  Suffice to say, the Taliban’s not generous with things like laundry and new clothes.  

 

But at least he still has the disgusting camouflage uniform.  Something with long sleeves and legs to keep his emaciated body from freezing in the teeth-chattering desert cold.  James curls his toes inside his dusty combat boots, trying to generate a tingle in his numb feet.

 

The outdated SUV roars to life and starts bumping down an unpaved sandy road.  James lets out a breath that turns instantly into a groan.  He’s not going to vomit; he’s already spent the majority of his short visit to the latrine dry heaving.  James has hardly been motion sick in his life.  But then again, he’s hardly been this empty in his life.  

 

Everything’s gone.  His loyal unit of Howling Commandos.  His freedom.  His fucking hat.  Everything he’s ever cared about.  Every bit of evidence showing his life’s worth.

 

Well, except one thing.  James drapes his torso over his knees, giving his concave stomach the comfort of his thighs.  He reaches the fingers of his right hand into the top of his boot.  His hand is too cold to be able to differentiate the edge of the envelope from the folds of his crusty sock.

 

“Up!” comes sharply from the vehicle’s front seat.  James drags his body back upright.  His head spins a little, and his shoulder butts against the dirty window.  

 

He knows the letter’s there, even if he can’t feel it.  Just like he knows Steve is at home, hopefully happy without him.  Lessons as far back as high school health class taught him that it’s not good to perseverate on old relationships, but James had kept on wishing.  With every letter sent, there had been a possibility Steve would reply.  But there had been nothing, and now James hasn’t written in…he doesn’t know how long.  Weeks, at least.  Steve probably thinks he’s given up.  

 

James wishes he could say he hasn’t.  But he hurts more every day.  His body, his head, his brain.  The best indication of passing time is the disappearance of muscle and fat from his body, and as he grows frailer, the sharpness of Steve’s absence digs deeper.  If he’s not coming back, if his handwriting is never going to grace a page before James’s eyes again…

 

He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be able to take it.  If his weakened form gives in to dehydration, or if fuckers in the front seat finally decide to shoot him in the head, or if the goddamn junker of a car trips into an IED, James won’t be upset.  If anything, he’ll be relieved.


	29. 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the loose ends are tied at a birthday party.

**29.0 JAMES, Tuesday 10 March 2015, 1942 hours.  Lighthouse Landing Apartments.**

 

They’re over an hour late for his 30th birthday party.  

 

Putting on his shoes had triggered a panic attack.  The prospect of leaving the apartment and going somewhere new, even with Steve at his side, had overwhelmed him .  

 

Steve had been patient, sitting beside James on the living room floor, lightly massaging his shoulders and telling him they didn’t have to go if he didn’t want to.  

 

James had insisted he did want to.  He was just scared.  It took 20 minutes for him to breathe without the shakiness of tears, then another 40 to cycle through anxiety before swallowing down water and ibuprofen and crossing the parking lot to slide into Steve’s car.

 

When they finally arrive at the subdued Olive Garden across the street from the massive and thankfully not bustling commuter train station, James inhales deeply.

 

“Ready?” Steve asks.

 

James nods.

 

“This is supposed to be fun,” Steve reminds him.  “If it’s not, you don’t have to do it.”

 

“I’m gonna try,” James says.  

 

Steve looks across from the driver’s seat, smiling.  “You have the best attitude today.”

 

“It’s my birthday,” James replies with a sideways grin.

 

“That it is.”

 

Nat stands up and waves at them as soon as James and Steve make it through the front door.  She’s secured a large table in the corner of the restaurant, and most of the VA’s therapists, plus Darcy from the cafeteria, are seated around it.  From the looks of it, they’ve already destroyed quite a bit of salad and breadsticks.

 

“Dude.  Happy Birthday,” Sam says when James approaches.  

 

“Um.  Thanks,” James stutters.  He sidles behind Darcy and his new social worker, Wanda, to his preferred seat up against the wall.  Steve sits at his right shoulder, and Nat at his left.  No one asks why they’re so late, and for that James is grateful.

 

A waitress materializes, topping off water glasses.  “Guest of honor here?  Finally?” she asks in a voice drenched in cheery sarcasm.  “Ready to order?”

 

Nat leaps out of her seat again and pushes the younger woman a few feet back.  Even so, James can hear Nat’s hiss of “combat veteran” and “harder than you’ve ever worked in your life.”  He feels himself flush with embarrassment at the words.

 

“You don’t have to…” he mumbles when Nat flops back into her chair.  

 

She rolls her eyes.  “Not a big deal,” she says.  “What do you want to eat?”

 

Plain pasta with grilled chicken and a glass of water is hardly special, in fact, it’s mostly what Steve’s been feeding him at home, but James’s been feeling better in the past month than he has all year.  

 

Perhaps intimidated by her interaction with Nat, the waitress says the a-la-carte order will be no problem.  

 

Eventually, conversation blooms up.  “So.  Thirty, eh?”  Nat’s fellow OT, Clint, teases from across the table.  “How does it feel being so old?”

 

James shrugs.  “Same as being 29, I guess.”  The recent marked differences in his recovery have nothing to do with age; they come down to the man sitting beside him.

 

“Hey, I’m 30 in like, four months,” Steve jibes.  “And how old are you, anyway?  Forty?”

 

“I’m a young one compared to your old soul,” Clint replies, stirring the ice at the bottom of his coke.

 

“I’d say more like immature,” Nat offers.  “Your son’s what, ten now?  He’s definitely got a year or two on you.”

 

The table breaks out laughing.  James smiles through a chuckle, and Steve pats his hand under the table, giving subtle feedback that he’s doing great.

 

The food arrives shortly thereafter, heaved from the kitchen on multiple large, round trays.  James’s plain pasta is set in front of him, along with small dishes of butter and cheese.  “Just in case you want to dress it up a little bit,” the waitress says with a sweet expression.  

 

“Thanks,” James murmurs, but she’s already setting down Steve’s lasagna and probably doesn’t hear him.

 

He picks up his fork and takes a bite.  The chicken is juicy, and the noodles are plain and perfect.  “Good?” Steve checks in.

 

“Yeah,” James replies.  “Really good.”

 

“Awesome.”

 

It only takes half of his dinner to fill James’s stomach.  He’s still timid to eat more than necessary out of fear of feeling sick again, but tonight he sets down his fork feeling contented.  

 

When the waitress returns again to take dessert orders, James shakes his head at first, then looks to Steve.  

 

“You don’t have to want any,” Steve affirms.  But he asks for tiramisu for the table anyway.  

 

“See, your birthday’s about you being happy,” Sam says.  “But also about your friends being happy.”

 

James lets that sink in for a moment.  “All…my friends?” he asks.  He’s never thought of the group of therapists that way before.  Darcy’s more like an acquaintance.  Sam and Nat and Wanda are his…helpers, maybe?  And he’s barely interacted with the other OTs and PTs not specifically assigned to him.  But they’re all friends with Steve, and maybe that gives them the same relationship to him by default.

 

“Of course,” Nat says, playfully punching James in the ribs.  

 

“Seems like a good segue into presents,” Sam suggests, raising his eyebrows.  The table gives a general agreement, and he passes James a card and a lumpy parcel over the tray of cake that’s just been delivered.

 

The card looks hand-drawn.  Somebody’s done a neat rendition of two puppies, one a yellow lab, the other chocolatey, curled together in a plush dog bed while a brilliant sunset glows through the window behind them.  James turns to Steve.  “Did you draw…?”

 

“Yeah,” Steve smiles.  “But everybody signed it, inside…”  He’s too good.  Too humble to be real.

 

And they have.  All the therapists have scrawled their names along with birthday wishes and lots of congratulations that seem to be for something else besides making it to 30.  “Thanks…” James says, trying to take in as much of the sloppy handwriting as he can.  He moves his eyes back to Steve.  “I remember you drawing, but not specifically…”

 

“I’m sure you’ll see plenty…”

 

“Alright, knock off the sappiness,” Clint laughs from across the table.  

 

James laughs along with everyone else and obliges.  He slips his fingers under the edge of the parcel’s wrapping and unsticks the loosely secured tape.  The paper unrolls to reveal a baseball cap.  It’s black, and embroidered with a red star on the front.  The tiny Veterans Association logo is beside it, done in silver.  

 

“Nice,” James comments, fluffing it and jamming it onto his head.  Steve reaches up to flatten his hair behind his ears for him.

 

“Hey, success!”  Darcy and Nat high-five each other.  

 

“Thanks, guys,” James says, already overwhelmed with the generosity, slight as it is.

 

“One last thing,” Sam says, reaching into the chest pocket of his shirt for a folded piece of paper.  “But it’s really for him.”  He nods at Steve and hands over the note.

 

“Huh?” Steve questions, accepting the paper.  He looks confused.  So does James.  And everyone else.

 

“Give it a sec.”  Sam seems to be suppressing a grin.

 

“ _Rogers_ ,” Steve begins reading aloud.  “ _Looking forward to seeing you back in the office on Monday.  Enjoy paid vacation for the rest of the week.  I’ve ended James’s lease on his apartment, so a maybe you’d like to volunteer to help him finish moving out so a new tenant can move in.  As long as you observe all ethics rules in the future, I see nothing wrong with putting this event behind us.  Just be sure to invite me to the wedding…_ ” Steve breaks off laughing.  

 

James feels mortification bring heat to his cheeks.

 

“ _Thanks, signed, Fury_ ,” Steve finishes.  “Oh, wow.”  He’s still chuckling.  But he uses the pad of his thumb to wipe moisture from the corner of his eye.

 

“Pretty good, huh?” Sam says.

 

“Wait, you read it?” Steve interjects.  

 

“Dude, I was in Fury’s office while he was writing it,” Sam covers.  “But hey, everything’s good now, right?”

 

“Yeah, I…”  Steve clutches the note in one hand and throws the other around James’s shoulders.  “Way more than good.”  He presses his nose into James’s cheek.  “You think?”

 

There’s a sudden lump of emotion in James’s throat.  “Yeah.  I… It’s like…like finally being home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading.


End file.
